The Perceptions project consists out of five exhibitions that will be touring through the Western Balkans and which in focus have female artists.
Perceptions for their starting point take the selection of works by prominent British artists from the British Council collection and complement with works of local artists in five partner museum institutions. Each of the exhibitions will present 24 works of 14 artists from the British Council collection, together with works by local artists.
Perceptions will be exhibited in following museums and galleries:
- National Museum of Montenegro in Cetinje
- Gallery of Matica Srpska in Novi Sad
- Museum of Contemporary Art of Republika Srpska in Banja Luka
- Kosova National Art Gallery in Priština
- Contemporary Art Museum of Macedonia in Skopje
The five exhibitions that confront different artistic approaches to re-examination of the role, (self)representation and status of women through modern art history and contemporary art practices have been designed as commentaries along the trajectory of complex social and historical situations in the space of former Yugoslavia, opening a significant chapter not only in terms of the renewed actualization of the women's question within the local artistic systems, but also in the context of the re-established cooperation between the afore mentioned art and museum centres.
The circumstances in which the art is discussed in social contexts of Britain and each of the Western Balkans countries certainly differ in many respects, but it is worth remembering that these differences are surpassed by the common aspiration for images, attitudes, and stereotypes about women to be critically thought over, and debated as universal and indispensable issues greater than any local specificities – although often conditioned precisely by these very specificities.
