THIS MUST BE THAT PLACE

PhD art project

Exhibition opening: Tuesday, 21 March 2023 at 7 pm

Candidate: Тijana Sekulić, MA, associate professor at the Faculty of Applied Arts, Belgrade

Мentor: Ranko Bočina, full professor at the Faculty of Applied Arts, Belgrade

Department of Interior Architecture and Furniture Design

Coordinator: Milica Cukić, MAA advisor

Organizers: the MAA and the FAA

The subject of Tijana Sekulić’s PhD art project is the design of a mobile multifunctional unit in the form of a micro-object which, with its utilitarian character, serves as a resource integrated in projects that encourage various forms of social activism.

The goal of the project is the design of a multi-purpose facility which acts as a micro-social platform for the realization of socially responsible initiatives. Emphasis is placed on the consideration of the needs of people belonging to marginalized, socially sensitive groups, and the application of design in order to improve living conditions.

In the exhibition entitled “This must be that place,” Tijana Sekulić, MA, shows the development of the process of conceptual and practical research into the design and spatial solutions of micro-objects, through the process of complexification, as well as connecting and upgrading functional elements. The spatial and purposeful typology of buildings can be altered in its dimensions, expanded with additional elements, as well as increased or reduced according to the same structural and design pattern, thus building different spatial units. The objects are designed in the form of an archetypal house shape, symbolizing a protected space or refuge.

This project explores the relationship between form and function in a limited, defined space, as well as the variability of the unit itself depending on future scenarios and possible activities considered in the domain of design, in order to develop and meet the needs of marginalized, socially sensitive groups as the future users of buildings.

Tijana Sekulić (Belgrade, born in 1969) graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. She received her master’s degree at the same faculty, from the Department of Interior and Furniture Design. She is building her professional career at her home Faculty, where she has been employed since 2002. Now she holds the title of associate professor at the Department of Interior Architecture and Furniture Design, in the group of subjects in the area of Furniture Design.

The field of interest of Tijana Sekulić, MA, is furniture design, interior architecture and urban design. She is the author and co-author of a large number of realized projects, as well as thematic exhibitions and workshops that promote the work of the Department of Interior Architecture and Furniture Design.