Currency – A women´s work (painting installation)
Ancient Romans called the area, where today´s North Macedonia stand, „Catena Mundi“, Clasp of the world. A place where all world meet. Indeed, the whole ancient world met here, and today still, different ethnicities coexist in this space, not always peacefully. The only element that transcends the different ethnicities are the traditional arts and craft that connect the whole balkan area, such as embroidery, largely used in domestic environment. A symbol of tradition and collective memory. Handmade embroidered table cloths are, by the matter of fact, a work made by women. Mostly underpaid or unpaid, yet traditionally a component of any house in the area. Beautifully crafted, they are, through the handy work, a valuable item. Much as women, who are mostly unseen, underpaid, sometimes even abused in their domestic environment. An issue that runs deeper and often more undetected than the multiethnical reality. Women are a real currency of any society. For my project during my residency at Loja – Center for Balkan Cooperation I used these traditional form of arts as starting point for a series of painting to reinterpretate the difficulties many women faces in the Macedonian society and to homage their stories. Thanks to the support of Loja and of Women´s Forum Tetovo ( женски форум / Forumi i Gruas ), I could realize a series of portrait (using the profile as a reference to the images one find on money) of brave women living or staying in Tetovo: family´s breadwinner, activists, single parents, survivors of domestic abuse and rebels at heart.
