Aberrations (ex situ)
Boja Vasic, Manuela Lalic
A Space Main Gallery
March 23 – April 28, 2007
Curated by: Ingrid Mayrhofer
Copresented by: Images Festival
The two artists in this exhibition, Boja Vasic and Manuela Lalic, each explore the potential of material salvaged from systemic waste. Vasic documents the ’Invisible City’ (created in collaboration with Vessna Perunovich) constructed, much like Jorge Luis Borge’s map, right over top of a modern city’s garbage dump, by a community of Roma refugees on the outskirts of Belgrade. Lalic builds on the idea of the corporate social model through what she calls ‘Monumental Accumulation’ adding packing tape to boardroom furniture to create a new structure.
In the gap between the struggle for survival in abject marginalization on one extreme, and the cancer-like growth of surplus economic gain on the other, lies the vast territory mapped by a globalized neo-liberal guild. Vasic and Lalic pose the question as did the generations following the cartographers’ order in Borge’s fictional empire whether that map is of any use to future societies, other than that of a relic.
Biographies
Boja Vasic is a Toronto based media artist and photographer. His work has been shown in Cuba, Serbia, Portugal, Albania, Liverpool, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Chicago, Denver and Toronto. He has won several international awards including the Chris Award at the Columbus International Film and Video Festival, a Bronze Medal at New York Festivals, and the Gold Award at Dallas HeSCA Media Festival.
Manuela Lalic was born in France, she has lived and worked in Montreal since 1997. She studied at the Beaux arts in France (1992-1996) and did a master in visual art (UQAM, Montreal, 2002). In 2002, she received the Duchamp-Villon price. She has taken part in numerous solo and group shows (Quebec, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, Japon, Spanish, England, China and Lebanon).
Ingrid Mayrhofer is a visual artist and community arts practitioner. Her work addresses issues of social justice through personal imagery and collective experience. Born and raised in Austria, Ingrid received her arts education at York University and has exhibited in Canada, Nicaragua, Mexico, Serbia, Japan, Chile and Austria.