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Maja Kirovska: The art of men without voices

by Séverine Grosjean

Maja Kirovska is a Macedonian artist who approaches her work through installation, performance or sculpture. In her latest work, “Spectrum“, which could also be translated by Tragic Maritime History, Maja draws an open, transcendental and immanent process, offering the invited audience to participate in a highly attractive and engaging game on the topic of migration.

Maja Kirovska, Life Vests, 2017, object, exhibition Spectrum I, Art MAP, Braga, Portugal

Emerging artist concerned to present a reality instead of interpreting it. She wants to draw attention and confront the public about the changes in today’s world. The installation divided into different parts tells the “Journey” In a first time, Maja draws an image of a trip she had made on a cruise. The second time it works as an “interactive game” where the audience with a digital tablet walks on a blue floor, an artificial ocean, in which small paper boats are distributed, the improvised boats of refugees trying to survive. The public must follow the instructions of the computer. We have to admit that our time has produced more refugees, more migrants, more displaced people, more exiles than ever in history. These “paper constellations” translate each path with physical and cultural barriers incorporated in the borders. Depending on their origin or social status, the same trip can be a good trip for some and a long and risky exodus for others.

Blue, 2015, installation _ augmented reality, photographs_ 10 x 13 x 4m, Gallery FLU
Maja Kirovska, Blue, 2015, installation _ augmented reality, photographs_ 10 x 13 x 4m, Gallery FLU

The project contains a conceptual approach already developed, which results in the use of various materials, photographs, texts, objects that led to the construction of the work. The final result is a mosaic of chaotic situations and intertextual relationships, stories and values ​​that refer to the “forest of information with many symbols“. This “virtual reality” talks about the refugee problem that provokes a variety of emotions Maja Kirovska allows everyone to read new information, which is often taken for granted. “Spectrum” provokes an emotional impact with reminiscences. She gives a human face to the refugees describing the fate of these men and women by trying to deconstruct the clichés associated with them.

Filter, 2015, installation _ digitaly printed text and color glasses, 5 x 4 x 3m, Gallery FLU, Skopje
Filter, 2015, installation _ digitaly printed text and color glasses, 5 x 4 x 3m, Gallery FLU, Skopje

However, this “reality” experienced by the public is only an illusion. This feeling is reinforced by an experience in which you are invited to wear stereoscopic  blue, red or green glasses. According to the glasses used, the information obtained will be different and the reality will be different. The stereoscopic image is just a hallucination of our senses, a mere illusion of reality that exists only through the effort of our will. It is an image of a fragmented world that is not identical. She is selfish and personal. The truth is ambiguous. Which one do you choose? This virtual “journey” across borders is full of contradictions and difficulties.

Filter, 2015, installation _ digitaly printed text and color glasses, 5 x 4 x 3m, Gallery FLU, Skopje

This dream of another world is also a powerful motor for artists who have become privileged witnesses of individual or collective situations reflecting our time. Migration is a subject as old as the world. Faced with the recent acceleration of the phenomenon, the generated human dramas and the incredible wave of images that overwhelm us, Maja Kirovska offers a response to an essential need, which politics no longer provides, that of the bond of man with his community, of the relationship of the singular to the universal. In the “Spectrum” project of Maja Kirovska, the lived experience is a step towards personal improvement that helps to develop a more inclusive society. As Marc Augé says, in the age of globalization, borders “never fade, they redraw”.

Séverine Grosjean

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