Non-Aligned Souvenirs by the artist Maja Gecić

Opening ceremony: Thursday, 9 May 2019 at 19:00

Exhibition Curator and Catalogue Editor: Bojana Popović

Catalogue Text Authored by: Marija Radoš

Graphic Design of the catalogue, invitation card and poster: Maja Gecić

Exhibition Associates: Katarina Đorđević, Linnea Ronsenkvist, Valentina Savić

Exhibition Partners: Ivko Woman d.o.o, Filipa d.o.o.

Council of the Salon of the Museum of Applied Art: Borut Vild, Ljubica Jelisavac Katić, Slobodan Jovanović, Ljiljana Miletić Abramović and Bojana Popović

At the exhibition Non-Aligned Souvenirs, specially created for the Salon of the Museum of Applied Art, Maja Gecić explores the themes representing the constants of her work – her interest in the urban areas in which she resides, as well as in the ups and downs of social, cultural and production institutions from her environment. Now, she begins the process of “distillation” of her intimate emotions and insights related to the Belgrade cinemas from “the non-aligned period” in which we lived not so long ago. These cinemas, once representing the cult places, and for the artist, even personal “magic windows into the world”, are now devastated and expelled from the collective memory. Maja Gecić turns her cinematic memories – associative manifestations – into the symbols that she develops until they become patterns applied on printed wallpapers, textile, as well as on machine knitwear. She uses them, along with her personal and family items, to create installations. According to the author of the catalogue text Marija Radoš, these installations serve to “introduce the audience to the process of patterning personal memorise and the process of repacking memories into some new souvenirs”.

Maja Gecić (1974) finished the High School of Design (Textile Department, 1988–1992) upon which she graduated from the Belgrade Faculty of Applied Arts (Textile Design Department, 1993–1998). She finished her postgraduate (2002–2006) and specialist studies (2006–2007) in Finland, at the University of Arts and Design (today known as Aalto University) in Helsinki, Department of Textile Art and Design. She is active in the fields of textile art and graphic design, and she is also a lecturer at the Textile College of Applied Studies in Design, Technology and Management in Belgrade, the Department of Textile and Clothing Design.

Maja Gecić is a member of ULUPUDS (the Association of Applied Arts Artists and Designers of Serbia) and the Textile Section of the Finnish Association of Applied Arts Artists and Designers (ORNAMO, 2006–2009). She is a co-author of the concept of the international project Pushing the Boundaries (which has been held since 2014), under the auspices of ULUPUDS.

The artist’s works are held in the Fiskars Public Art Collection (Finland), in the permanent collection of the United States of America Embassy in Belgrade, as well as in private collections in Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, the United States of America and Australia.

Author of the photographs: Veselin Milunović