Misplaced Women?

Feminist artist Tanja Ostojić creates long-term projects that address the radical negotiation of borders, may they be ideological, physical, or social. A recurring theme in her project is bio-politics of what she refers to as “Fortress Europe,” including the violence of the borders, restrictions to citizens’ rights, and the fragility of gender in the context of immigration. 

Ostojić’s project Misplaced Women? invites women to carry packed suitcases in public spaces and repeatedly pause to pack and unpack as they move through the space. Locations for performances include migration-specific places: train stations, airports, borders, underground, police stations, refugee camps, specific parks, prisons etc. The project involves contributions by international artists, students and people from diverse backgrounds. The participants embody and enact an everyday life activity that, according to the artist “signifies a displacement as common to transients, migrants, war and disaster refugees, and itinerant artists traveling the world to earn their living.” The performances reveal relations of power and vulnerability in regard to the transient and the female body, a recurring theme in Ostojić’s projects.

Participants in Misplaced Women? are invited to share their experiences on the blog and during public discussions. Contributions are posted in the form of images, notes, stories or videos to the project’s blog. The results are not as important as the processes that are being documented, archived and written about by the participants.