Exhibition at the Optical and Mechanical Plant features the artwork

Hooked — Опасная работа (2021)

The installation series Hooked by Bosnian artist Šejla Kamerić was started by the author in 2010. It consists of fourteen black and white large-scale crocheted items that the artist places in dialogue with their immediate spatial surroundings, their logic, and laws. The Hooked handmade crocheted nets are enlarged tablecloths – doilies (Russian: Салфеточка). These familiar household objects are transformed into pieces that symbolize the origins or their creation — social captivity of women. These crochet pieces are oversized and unattainable in a subtle attempt to break free from enforced and maintained restraints.

As part of the artist’s contribution to the project, Šejla Kamerić is also presenting a participatory performance of the same name in the Ekaterinburg Circus.

Šejla Kamerić (b.1976, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a visual artist who lives and works a relation between Sarajevo and Berlin. Her practice involves film, photography, objects, drawings, and installations. She has received widespread acclaim for the poignant intimacy and social commentary that have become the main elements of her work. Taking up the subjects that arise from non-linear historical narratives, as well as personal histories, Kamerić places her focus the politics of memory, modes of resistance in human life, and consequential idiosyncrasies of women’s struggle. By insisting empathy as the founding communicative mechanism between herself, her subjects, and spectators, Kamerić warns of, and at the same time creates, powerful political statements.

Kamerić’s works are part of numerous international art collections, such as TATE Modern in London, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Vehbi Koç Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul, MACBA Barcelona, Contemporary art museum in Zagreb, Kontakt Collection in Austria, ArtTelekom in Germany, etc.

Kamerić has individually displayed her work at the MACBA, Barcelona; ARTER, Istanbul; MUMOK in Vienna, Sharjah Art foundation – Sharjah Art Museum; Centre Pompidou in Paris; Portkus in Frankfurt am Maine; GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen; Kunsthaus Graz, Graz; CAC Contemporary Art Centre - Vilnius; Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Röda Sten Centre for Contemporary Art and Culture in Gothenburg, Wip: Konsthall in Stockholm; Galerie im Taxispalais in Innsbruck; National Gallery of BH, Sarajevo as well as other art platforms worldwide.

Selected group exhibitions include Diversity United / Contemporary art from Europe, Berlin (2021); The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2019); 2nd Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art, Coventry (2019); 4th Berliner Herbstsalon, Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin (2019); The Value of Freedom at Belvedere21, Vienna (2018); The Restless Earth, Fondation Nicola Trussardi - La Triennale, Milano (2017); and many more.

Her films were screened in more than 40 international film festivals including the Venice International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Adana Film Festival, Zagreb Film Festival, and Sarajevo Film Festival.

Photo by Edvin Kalic