multimedia exhibition aboard MS Amorella, Viking Line The Stockholm ~Mariehamn ~ Turku ruta / curator: Jasmina Šarić / organization: International Master’s Programme Stockholm University

What constitutes a place are our relations to it. So where are we now, at this very moment? 
In our globalized world focused on the mobility, belonging to a place is easily to be questioned. Travelling from one place to another for various reasons, separation and sense of identity are closely interrelated. Historically, boat has been one of the first means that brought people from one place to another. Foucault considers the boat as the greatest heterotopia of all – “it is a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea” (Foucault, Of Other Spaces). For him, it has not only been the great instrument of economic development but also the greatest reserve of imagination, and a form against repression (“in civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates”). The ship is a place of escape, salvation, retreat and exile, but also, it is a shared space in itself.
In Duška Boban’s recent work, she explores and discovers the great achievements of her hometown’s Split shipbuilding, focusing her artistic research around the themes of labour and production. Her artistic practice is often intertwined with her activist practice, using photography as a mean for the critical approach to the social phenomena around her. 
The works presented in the exhibition relate to the context of the ship differently. The interactive nature of the works calls for active participation in creating visual narratives. In On the Way Home, she collects different interpretations of the notion of an island. From feelings of dislocation, to questions of cultural heritage and tradition, the work shows the variety of relations we create with the sea. In Dinner Invitation, she transfers the intimate environment to a visual storytelling, which refers to the potential of the ship as a form of gathering and in the creation of a shared space. In Modern city, she questions the identity of a place, its transformation and its position between present and the past. What is the relation between the collective memory and a place? What have we inherited, and what are we about to construct? ( Jasmina Šarić )

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On the Way Home is a virtual exhibition designed by Duška Boban, focused around the notion of „island“ and presented through the variety of its social, philosophical and artistic interpretations. The interactive works present one of the early attempts of including the audience into the world of contemporary digital art. The project also includes works by Nikola Bajto, David Larcher, Ivan Ladislav Galeta, Dubravko Kuhta, Kolja Marković and Dunja Sablić. ( More you can find here). The work is interactive and the viewers are invited to enter and discover the works in the virtual exhibition by clicking. Once inside, bear in mind that if you want to leave the island you have to head out to sea.

The Modern City consists of a series of analogue photographs projected in the interior of the cabin. The photographs are taken in Split, Amorella’s hometown, and refer to the continuity of the modernism in its architecture. Modern City was first shown as part of the 39th Split Salon in the Marjan Park Association’s stone kiosk in 2015, and is now adapted to the new context – on Amorella, it references the identity of the city that was constructed through its strong maritime tradition and shipbuilding. More on the work you can find here.

In Dinner Invitation, Duška Boban transfers her immediate environment to a visual storytelling using digital photography. The gathering is seen as a form shared between the intimate atmosphere in which it was created and the context of the ship. The work is projected onto the existing photo in the cabin, connecting the Baltic and Mediterranean once again. 
The viewers are invited to interact with the projection, by discovering and creating the visual narrative at their own pace. The work was first showed during the Motovun Film Festival in 2005 and now is entirely available under this link.

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Curated & organized by Jasmina Šarić

This project is part of a degree project within Curating Art, International Master’s Programme at Stockholm University.

The project is supported by Viking Line AB and the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Sweden.