(Boryana Rossa, Deconstruction of VALIE EXPORT’S Tap and Touch Cinema, 2013.
photo: Ilmira Bolotyan, Tatyana Sherstyuk)
Within the framework of Smoqua³, which will take place in Rijeka from May 23 to 25, art organization From the Citizens to Their City presents Bulgarian artist Boryana Rossa, whos work Madonna of the External Silicone Breast will be exhibited in one of the advertising spaces in front of the park Pomerio during the festival.
On Friday, May 24, at 17:00 in space of GSG, Križanićeva 6a, Zvonimir Dobrović, art director of Queer Festival Zagreb, will be holding an artists talk with the artist about her engaged art practice.
On the same day at 18:00 Boryana Rossa will present her Deconstruction of VALIE EXPORT’S Tap and Touch Cinema.
In Deconstruction of VALIE EXPORT’S Tap and Touch Cinema, Boryana Rossa offers a contemporary queer version of the well-known performance by VALIE EXPORT from 1968, where the artist invited the audience to touch her breasts, hidden in the box that covered the upper part of her body. Deconstruction of VALIE EXPORT’S Tap and Touch Cinema as well as Madonna of the External Silicone Breast are part of a larger thematic whole where Rossa, inspired by double mastectomy which she underwent in order to prevent cancer, records the changes in her physical and mental understanding of self. Instead of standard plastic reconstruction of the breasts, and instead of covering the fact she has no breasts, Rossa makes a political appeal for the acceptance of a different body not just as something that is possible, but also as something that is beautiful.
Boryana Rossa is an interdisciplinary artist and curator engaging in electronic art, film, video, performance and photography.
You can check the whole program of this years festival here.
* Participation in all Festival activities is free, except for the Queer-UP! Party (where donations will be collected at the entrance), and the Anna Calvi concert.
Organisers: LORI + PaRiter, From the Citizens to Their City, Centar za ženske studije pri Filozofskom fakultetu u Rijeci
Smoqua is financially supported by: Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture / Grad Rijeka / Primorje-Gorski Kotar county / Ministarstvo kulture Republike Hrvatske / Europska komisija / Musagetes / LUSH
Sponsored by: Adria print
Media sponsor: Novi list
