3 ARTISTS, 3 PROPOSALS

A group show bring­ing togeth­er Res­i­den­cy Unlim­it­ed’s 2023 res­i­dent artists Mil­i­ca Jankovic, Orly Ruai­mi and Jakub Jansa from Mon­tene­gro, Unit­ed States and Czech Repub­lic, respectively.

Mil­i­ca Jankovic: Inher­it­ed Memory

In this video instal­la­tion, Jankovic con­jures the inher­it­ed mem­o­ries of her fam­i­ly through the shut­down of a fac­to­ry man­u­fac­tur­ing refrig­er­a­tors that was locat­ed in the city of Cetinje, Mon­tene­gro — a sym­bol of the work­ing class in for­mer Yugoslavia, that remained unin­hab­it­ed for the past thir­ty years. By dig­ging into fac­to­ry archives, fam­i­ly mem­o­ries, and for­mer work­ers’ nar­ra­tives the artist uses those sounds and images, reshap­ing them through the prism of her own expe­ri­ence. On the build­ing where the major­i­ty of work­ing-class fam­i­lies used to live, the win­dows get trans­formed into por­tals of dis­play where sym­bol­ic images, video, and sounds merge con­trast­ing time peri­ods. The work is con­fig­ured in the space in such a way that it mir­rors ques­tions of how mem­o­ry trans­mit­ted from one gen­er­a­tion to the next shapes the way one sees and thinks of future utopias we all are con­demned to.

“Like a matrix that col­lects and absorbs what is hap­pen­ing in the envi­ron­ment, I was col­lect­ing every­day sounds, videos, and images, that in the process of over­lap­ping cre­at­ed ulte­ri­or ones, emerg­ing with new mean­ings. These mean­ings were shaped through the prism of what I lived, of my past mem­o­ries, and the ones that I have inher­it­ed. By mir­ror­ing the ques­tions of how the mem­o­ry that we inher­it­ed from our par­ents shaped the way we see and think of the future brought me to this archive of care­ful­ly stored domes­tic breviary’s.”

Click here for Mil­i­ca Jankovic’s bio.

Orly Ruai­mi: Mov­ing Tar­get (2023)

Ruaim­i’s instal­la­tion draws inspi­ra­tion from New York’s archi­tec­tur­al sym­bols and Gov­er­nors Island’s mil­i­tary his­to­ry. Dur­ing her New York City artist res­i­den­cy, she noticed the per­va­sive scaf­fold­ing that seems almost per­ma­nent despite its tem­po­rary nature. Ruai­mi chose to brings the scaf­fold­ing design indoors, address­ing the fragili­ty of the dete­ri­o­rat­ing house with­out fix­ing it. As well as cre­at­ing the idea of a ​“tar­get” by the ele­ments of the struc­ture cen­ter­ing on an exter­nal focal point out­side of the left win­dow in the room, turn­ing every passer­by into a visu­al target.

Click here for Orly Ruaim­i’s bio.

Jakub Jansa: Gar­den of Prob­lems (2017-present)

The artist presents two episodes from his con­tin­u­ing exhi­bi­tion project Club of Oppor­tu­ni­ties launched in 2017 star­ring hybrid human-veg­etable crea­tures who ques­tion cul­tur­al, class and author­i­ty rela­tions. The Club cross­es bound­aries of gen­res, from dra­ma to absurd com­e­dy, and employs fic­tion, humor and grotesque ele­ments to nar­rate sto­ries relat­ing to con­tem­po­rary social struggles.

Con­cur­rent­ly, the pub­lic will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­sult Jansa’s just released artist book The Gar­den of Prob­lems, uncov­er­ing sim­i­lar themes addressed in the Club of Oppor­tu­ni­ties with an edi­to­r­i­al for­mat that includes images of its iter­a­tions along with essays of invit­ed authors includ­ing Michal Novot­ný, Julie Béna, Kamil Nábělek, Noe­mi Purkrábková, Jozef Mrva Jr., Ernesty­na Orlows­ka, Klára Vlasáková, Jan Bělíček.

Click here for Jakub Jansa’s bio.

Res­i­den­cy Unlim­it­ed (RU) is one of the 2023 Gov­er­nors Island Arts Orga­ni­za­tions in Residence