danica dakić

<

… was haben wir dann heute? (so, what do we have today?)

The 1970s were a time of social change. The current exhibition “Die 70er. Damals war Zukunft” (The 1970s. The Future Was Then) in Schallaburg Castle focuses on this turbulent time and its relevance today. The project “… was haben wir dann heute? (so, what do we have today?)” poses a question to the exhibition’s title: If the future was then, what are the time vectors of the present? The four artists Danica Dakić, Petja Dimitrova, Oliver Ressler, and Anna Witt explore the relevance of utopias in public opinion – and what visual language they use – in in this day and age of permanent crisis. For the four artists from different corners of Europe, the future in the 1970s was defined by and associated with different political and social promises. How is the future in the 70s expressed today? For whom and at what scale is it made? The artistic contributions located around the Schallaburg Castle revolve around both normal and exceptional states, history and stories, and (under)representation.
(Maren Richter, curator)

Danica Dakić "Ferleza" (The Reader)
The Bosnian artist Danica Dakić is a professor of public art and new strategies at the University of Weimar. In her work, she investigates the role models of different groups. A central theme is the search for a space in which people can live out the identities they have created for themselves. “Ferleza” (The Reader) is based on the artist’s research in Brezo, a coal mine near Sarajevo. She not only refers to a film from the 1970s about the no longer pristine image of working-class heroes in Yugoslavia, she also creates a link between the present and the future in the 1970s. The mine, which was built during the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, is antiquated with obsolete technology, but Bosnia must keep up with its international competitors. The heroism of the workers comes from their working under these conditions every day. Dakić collaborated with the miners to create a photographic monument to today’s laborers that seems oriented toward the past. The title refers to the daily ritual of reading the safety guidelines in the Ferleza room before the shift begins.