Lana Čmajčanin
Lana Čmajčanin was born in 1983 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo. Her socially engaged practice includes installation, video, performance, and sound, often addressing the political framework, war and post-war conditions, and the role of women and the female body. She has exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, the Kunstmuseum Bonn, and the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2014). In 2013 she received the Special Award of the 54th October Salon, Belgrade.
551.35–GEOMETRY OF TIME
2014 (print 2025)
print on canvas in a lightbox
Courtesy of the artist
551.35–Geometry of Time confronts us with various delimitations of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The work comprises multiple scanned maps that have been overlaid on top of one another. For centuries, the borders of the territories of the former Yugoslavia in Middle East Europe were redrawn by war and peace treaties, while in the 19th and 20th centuries they were continuously reshaped by turbulent ideological events. Besides the territory they represent, the historical maps of Bosnia and Herzegovina also give a cartography of various nationalist interests and imperial agendas throughout history. The lightbox that illuminates the maps is like that used by the military. Yet the density of overlapping and previous delineations makes the borders unclear. The work thus creates an illegible yet evocative statement on sovereignty and statehood.