GEOGRAPHY OF LOOKING

Working group: Milica Tomić (artist) with Ana Bezić (archaeologist) Ar/Ge Kunst is honoured to commission a new work by the artist Milica Tomić, a major artistic voice of the last 30 years. Milica Tomić positions the site, specifically soil (both what it contains and what it sustains), as the crucial and active agent in the process of knowledge formation. Looking at the soil as an archive, Tomić uses what appears as material evidence to ponder invisible issues, revealing how nature, agriculture, property regulations and everyday life are continuously written and narrated into a place. The artistic act is in looking for an appearance of a Political Subject—the viewer—in the soil-as-archive. In this way, the work that will be presented at Ar/Ge Kunst comes to speak of the continuities and discontinuities of any political truth. Milica Tomić (1960) explores different genres and methods that centre on investigating, unearthing and bringing to public debate issues related to territories, political violence, resistance and social amnesia. Her projects often explore a multitude of unorthodox ways in which art can be created, performed, transformed and pondered. Tomić is a founding member of a New Yugoslav art/theory group, Grupa Spomenik [Monument Group, 2002]; in 2010, Tomic conceived and initiated an educational platform, Four Faces of Omarska. Ana Bezić (1974) is an archaeological scholar with a background in anthropology and critical studies. Her research explores the intersection, transposition and ethical implications of material culture in art, cultural heritage, science and archaeology. She is a member of a New Yugoslav art/theory group, Grupa Spomenik [Monument Group, 2002]. Curated by Zasha Colah and Francesca Verga.