Exhibition: "Without Self: The Drama of Everyday Life in the Speech of Bosnian Women" by Šejla Šehabović and artist Dejan Slavuljica - interview

Instead of the traditional congratulations on the occasion of 8 March - International Women's Day, the University of Sarajevo marked this historic date by respecting and affirming the efforts of women to achieve social equality. By opening the exhibition and holding talks with author Šejla Šehabović and artist Dejan Slavuljica, the University of Sarajevo decided to open a new academic space for discussion on women's issues and rights, primarily appreciating the importance of free thought, sensitized optics and artistic engagement. The conversation with the artists was led by literary and cultural theorist Merima Omeragić, a researcher at the University of Sarajevo.

Instead of flowers, our intention is to take off the shackles, to embark on emancipatory paths, because in the words of Rose Luxemburg: "Those who do not move do not notice their chains."

“I want to record a piece of the oral culture of Bosnian women, in the speech in which I was raised." The introductory sentence of the text in which the author Šejla Šehabović, in addition to announcing the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue, maps the place of Bosnian women in (contemporary) culture and everyday life. The project Without Yourself: Everyday Drama in Women's Speech is a synthesis of stimulated female oral speech recorded in short notes by Šejla Šehabović a system that brutally and out of the shadows marks women’s lives. Through three thematic blocks entitled: Body, Orientation and Identity, significant genders are determined that determine a woman's existence, physicality as a pain and danger; direction in the direction of sacrifice and suffering; and identity normative constraints dictated by patriarchal and desirable modelling. More specifically, it is about internalized women's fears of losing the integrity of the body, fears of losing orientation and identity that lead to desubjection and marginalization.

In the harmony of female voices that discursively "orally", i.e., traditionally colloquially, with original phrases, sometimes literary refinement, testify to painful, above all shocking and deeply intimate experiences, and authentic drawings which, although one-dimensional without excessive colour, sovereignly walk through the text. the importance of devising the goal of telling and presenting different dimensions of women's life in art media. And what is art other than a reflection of reality? And a space for articulating possible female selves marked by the gender inequality that women as a population face, and a field of struggle for the better today.

Happy 8 March - International Women's Day!