Lana Čmajčanin’s work Tailoring and Sewing (2011) takes a ludic approach to the conundrum of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) which Florence Hartman called the “Straight jacket of BH”. The Dayton Agreement left the territory subdivided into entities and cantons mostly drawn along ethnic (ethnically cleansed) borders, resulting in constant political strain of nationalistic interests. Čmajčanin offers the map of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the form of a tailoring pattern, leaving it up to the viewer to interact with, trace and re-compose its borders at will—just as arbitrarily as the Dayton Agreement was stitched together.

Extract from That Passes Between Us exhibition online catalogue

Curated by Lala Raščić
Online catalogue of the exhibition, 2012
English