Jovana Banjanac – Post

Jovana Banjanac (1988) is an artist from Kraljevo, who graduated from the Art School in Niš (2007), and then bachelor and master’s studies in wall painting at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade (2013). She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. She won the second prize at the November Salon 2016. Her works can be found in: Art collection Telekom / Digital Art (Germany), National Museum Kraljevo, Cultural Center Pančevo, Radix collection (Belgrade). From her earliest works, done in classical media (oils on canvas and drawings), through digital graphics, objects and installations, there is a noticeable preoccupation with internet communication and its aesthetics. More precisely, the author creates and intervenes in the field of social networks and digital culture, as a basis for researching first artistic values, and then all other challenges of the global community. From the first works, called “Street View”, through the series “Repetiton” and “Add to Your Story”, Jovana is interested in the relationship between man and digital culture, his needs and (dis)satisfaction because he becomes part of this privileged narrative. Her awareness of networks as a utopian reality grows into a critical and exploratory relationship, in which she probes “new” values that connect, redefine and influence the shaping of the public and the private. Facebook, Instagram, likes, search and scrolling become networked sets of information that, with a superficial and frivolous relationship, grow into one clumsy technoorganism, and it significantly affects man and his environment. However, from one such relationship, one can, and in the end should, come to enlightenment, transformation. It is in this direction that new works by Jovana Banjanac called “Post” are being created. From the mentioned internet fund, the artist will start researching digital tools, databases, an unlimited range of images and content in order to come to research and interpretation of micro and macro ecosystems, dealing with the immediate environment, nature and future survival. The ideas of composting and recycling are in the focus of her research, which proves this new paradigm in art, which shows awareness of inevitable changes and its identification with social practice, as well as the potential to shape and change society and social circumstances in which it arises. Curator of the exhibition and author of the text Suzana Novčić, museum advisor