Elma Selman
area: Intermedia Art
Key Facts
nationality
Bosnia and Herzegovinaarea
Intermedia Artresidence
Sarajevorecommending institution
BMEIAtime period
February 2016 - February 2016Elma Selman born 1983 in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Lives and works in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Solo exhibitions / performances:
2013
If you find my head flying around feel free to put it back where it belongs – Contemporary dance performance (work in preogress), Sarajevska Zima, Sarajevo, B&H, Ultima Vez studio, Brussels, Belgium
I moja bijela traka (And my white armband) – installation / performance, Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo, B&H
2012
It's time – installation Time, video works: Aerobic and House of Cards - curated by Sanela Nuhanovic, Gallery IPC E, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2010
Jah... – installation/performance - curated by Alina Trkulja, Gallery Collegium Artisticum, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Group exhibitions / performances:
2014
Jos jedno pismo preko Crvenog Krsta- theatre play, authors: Sanela Krsmanovic, Elma Selman, Sartr (Sarajevo War Theatre)- premiere 24/04/2014
Women as a subject, women as a object- photography/installation, Livno, B&H (27/12/2013-25/1/2014), Omis, Croatia ( 07/02/2014-27/02/2014)
2013
Present – Femme Fractale, 8. Martz, Berlin, Germany
Minimum maximum 4 – photography, theme: Crisis, museum RS, Banja Luka, Basel, Museum Rappaz, organization: UAA, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Leave a mark in their memories – Performance in a memory of Srebrenica, Potocari ( Srebrenica ) and SARTR ( Sarajevo ), B&H
Sjecanje Kamena (Beyond my eyes) – Contemporary dance performance, Sarajevo, B&H
2012
Minimum maximum 3 – artistic duo Shel: Sefko Obucina and Elma Selman - drawings on plexiglass Sexuality, museum RS, Banja Luka, organization: UAA, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dance for four – Contemporary dance performance (mixed ability dancers), SARTR, Sarajevo, B&H
Fate – installation, Museum of history Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo
Present – video art – Night of festivals, Nottingham, UK
Broken Gallery – video art – Athens video art festival, Athens, Greece
2011
Vacumess – contemporary dance performance, In the Meantime - Asa Gallery, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Everything that a bald guy is not – contemporary dance improvisation, Night of theaters, Art cinema Kriterion, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2010
House of cards – video art – Athens video art festival, Athens, Greece
Theydream – site-specific contemporary dance performance and exhibition, Duplex Gallery, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kocka je bacena? - contemporary dance improvisation, Potpourri- spice of live, Asa Gallery, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2009
Story of a moment – contemporary dance performance, Biennial of young artists of Europe and Mediterranean, Skopje, Macedonia
Where do you end and I begin?
My research will explore the relation between the memory of the body and images, static or moving images. Personal as well as collective history and experience becomes the foundation which creates the filter through which we are seeing the world, we live, reflect and create in it and through the experience the shape of the body and its movements change, body senses adjust to the experience and are often the source of associations which bring back the images or movements.
Working with the statements of women victims of sexual violence during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina I will research the images and movements which are in the same time the end of one shared experience and the beginning of the next. The research is set in the new context which is both - a future memory and the source of associations which awake the remembrance.
I came to MQ21 residency with a goal to develop performance/installation based on the subject of women victims of sexual violence. My focus and the approach was through the body, body as a collector of memory. I focused on time, power and visibility in a public.<br />This path and exploration was strongly influenced by the change of context and the new surrounding. My body changed. I felt that I am in a constant state of going and coming back, leaving and arriving. Leaving one country and coming back to it, even if just in thoughts, arriving to one idea and leaving it, arriving to another, leaving it...always with a same emotion of looking forward and looking back. Reading the statements of women victims of sexual violence, or victims of any other traumatic experience, it seemed the same overlapping sensation of looking forward and looking back is always present. This state of relative time and space resulted in an installation made of layers of plexiglass on with a one simple drawings of a body, body looking forward, body looking to the side and body looking backward. Since the plexiglass is transparent, it combines three simple drawings.<br />The driving force of any violent act, the sense of power, the everlasting competing game of who has more power I represented in an installation Which egg came first?, referring to an absurd continuation of the puzzle What came first, the chicken or the egg? The time I spent in MQ21 residency was short but very productive, I seemed invisible, but I was there.