Adna Muslija, Visual artist
I'm young, but I have potential.
Bio
Adna Muslija was born in Zenica in 1996. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in the Department of Art Education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo. She has spent one semester at the Faculdade des Belas Artes in Porto, Portugal, in the class of professor Sofie Torres Gonçalves, where she developed the project “Unbearable lightness of painting”, exploring contemporary trends in the medium of painting and the possibilities of the ‘new’ in painting. Choosing painting as major, she graduated in the class of professor Iva Simcic, phd., and defended her final thesis titled “Art as an ideological apparatus-ideology as artistic content” in 2019. She deepened her interest in art theory and research of the role of words and text through participation in the Summer School as School program of the Center for Contemporary Art Station in Pristina, where he successfully completed the course Inside the Language-Words and Art under the mentorship of Sezgin Boynik. In 2019, she was named the best student of the Department of Art Education and was nominated for the annual "Alija Kucukalic" award.
She completed her MA programme at the Department of Art Education, majoring in painting, by defending her thesis "Communicational and semiotic dimension of art - From sign to ideology" in 2020. She has been awarded the Golden Badge of the University of Sarajevo two times. She is enrolled in a double major MA programme Art History: Modern and Contemporary Art and Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo.
She has participated in several group exhibitions and solo exhibitions in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Belgrade, Porto, Milan (online exhibition), and Munich. In addition to independent artistic practice, she works within the artistic duo SINovi, with Kemil Bekteši. She has worked as a member of the organizational and curatorial team of the Gallery of Contemporary Art Brodac in Sarajevo. She is working as project coordinator assistant within KUMA. Center for Contemporary Art in Post-Conflict Societies, and is co-founder and curator of Gallery of Contemporary Arts "Manifesto".
Artist Statement
Lead by the idea that every social phenomenon is at the same time political, that all art is a reflection of society in which it is produced and consequentially, that all art is political, I made my art practice a field of confrontation, sublimation and communication of political, ideological and artistic discourses. Political and ideological is materialised in conceptual games of signs, meanings, words and texts, whose stressed visual character became a part of my artistic handwriting. I consider signs and symbols as embodiments of contemporary concepts of though and the basis of all communications. They, signs, are dissected from the established structures within which they exist, and their meanings within newly created artistic structures become open for reading. On the other hand, I use words and texts as I believe that ‘we are able to think as much as we have words’, so in order to reach new revelations, concepts and to ‘force spectators to think’, I manipulate with words and texts with aim to create a space for new interpretations of the known. The signs’, words’ and meanings’ play is followed by free choice of artistic medium. That is the reason why, creative process is often based on experiment, and its result muis often multimedial and interdisciplinary art piece.
Throughout my artworks, I give a form to my own reflections on contemporary social context, transforming my own attitudes into questions, contradictory or paradoxical statements, rather than didactic instructions for reading the concept. I understand art as a reflection, a critique, a generator of thought and an initial capsule of social change, because what cannot be said must not be silenced, but written, painted, created.
"Biography of socially engaged artist", 2019.
Translation: The search for my artistic expression came down to the search for systematical solution.
Education
2020-
Faculty of Philosophy, MA
2019-2020
Academy of Fine Arts, MA
2015-2019
Academy of Fine Arts, Bachelor
2011-2015
First Comprehensive School
Awards
2020
2019
2019
Golden Badge, University of Sarajevo
Nominated for "Alija Kucukalic" Award
Golden Badge, University of Sarajevo
Exhibitions
Solo
2021
"The Demarcation Line", Gallery Zvono/Gallery Art Depo Charlama, Sarajevo
2020
"Seven essentials, one transiency", Reiffeisen Bank Gallery, Upcoming
2020
2020
"Lorem ipsum", Galley of Fine Arts Academy, Sarajevo
"SINteza", Odron, Sarajevo
Group
2021
"Collective exhibition of MA graduates", Gallery of Academy of Fine Arts, Sarajevo, BiH
2021
"April Salon", Zenica Synagogue, Zenica, BiH
2021
"XI Biennale of Miniature", BKC, Tuzla, BiH
2021
"Youth Biennale", Pavillion Cvijeta Zuzorić, Belgrade, Serbia
2020
"Ten ballets (of oscillation)", Historical Museum, Sarajevo, BiH
2020
"The Nude", Galley of Fine Arts Academy, Sarajevo, BiH
2020
"Insieme",Online exhibition, Milano, Italy
2019
"No Pressure", Odron, Sarajevo, BiH
2019
"Eco-Blidinje", Dis Theatre, Banja Luka, BiH
2018
"Either/Or", Odron, Sarajevo, BiH
2018
"Epilogo", FBAUP, Porto, Portugal
2018
2017
2016
Annual student exhibition, Academy of Fine Art, Sarajevo, BiH
Annual student exhibition, Academy of Fine Art, Sarajevo, BiH
Annual student exhibition, Academy of Fine Art, Sarajevo, BiH
Curatorial Practice
2021
Haris Kusturica, "Aton's Summer", Gallery Zvono, Sarajevo, BiH, solo show
2021
Denis Haračić, "Reject", Historical museum BiH, Gallery Manifesto, Sarajevo, BiH, solo show
2021
2021
2021
2021
"NE SPORAZUM", Historical museum BiH, Gallery Manifesto, Sarajevo, BiH
"Manifesting Manifesto", private space, Sarajevo, BiH, group show
Kemil Bekteši, "Dear Santa", Skenderija, Sarajevo, BiH, solo show
Yulia Kopr, "Black Snow", GCA Brodac, Sarajevo, BiH, solo show
2021
2021
Benjamin Čengić, "Invazian", GCA Brodac, Sarajevo, BiH, solo show
Kemil Bekteši, "Bekteši", GCA Brodac, Sarajevo, BiH, solo show
2020
Mathias Muehle, "Colour Cuts", GCA Brodac, Sarajevo, BiH, solo show