Jovanka Popova selected as a curator of the CreArt European Exhibition 2019

Announcement | Jovanka Popova selected as curator of the European exhibition 2019 of CreArt Network

The Members of the CreArt Network have recently appointed the curator from Skopje (Macedonia)  Jovanka Popova, European Curator of the CreArt Exhibition 2019, "The Third Place", to be presented next year in Zagreb (Croatia), Clermont-Ferrand ( France) and Lecce (Italy). During this month, all the CreArt cities will open calls for the selection of artists and then, the European Curator, Jovanka Popova, will make the final selection of artists and projects that best fit the concept "The third space".

"The third apace" aims to present artistic practices that reflect "identity" in relation to the community and the community, as synonymous with a space of solidarity, shared collective experiences or important community participation. The use of the term solidarity is mainly defined as a manifestation that articulates joint action, but also connected with an existential category linked to the vulnerability of human life. Therefore, the reference themes on which the selected artists will point out - often tragic, culturally conditioned, socially manipulated, politically damaged, parasitically dependent on a line of unstable decisive factors and bureaucratic structures - show the precarious nature of modern life and the restlessness of the consequences of those that are omnipresent.

Jovanka Popova, born in 1980 in Skopje, Macedonia, is a curator and program coordinator at press to exit project space and curator collaborator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje. She completed her B.A. and M.A. at the Faculty of Philosophy Institute for History of Art in Skopje, where she was an Assistant for the subject Macedonian Contemporary Art. She has curated exhibitions in the contemporary art field in Macedonia and worked on international curatorial projects. She has also presented her work at the Humboldt University, Central European University Budapest, Goethe University Frankfurt, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Kunst Historisches Institut, Florence, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts and other institutions. She serves on the board of the West Balkan Residency Program coordinated by <rotor> Association for Contemporary Art, Graz and apexart, New York. She is executive director of JADRO Association of the independent cultural scene, Macedonia, and she is a president of the Macedonian Section of the AICA International Association of Art Critics. Lives and works in Skopje.

 CreArt European Exhibition 2019 The Third space

The use of the term solidarity is primarily defined as a manifestation that articulates joint action, but also connected with an existential category linked with the vulnerability of the human life. 

Therefore, the reference issues on which the selected artists will point out - often tragical, culturally conditioned, socially manipulated, politically damaged, parasitically dependent on a line of unstable decisive factors and bureaucratic structures - shows the precarious nature of modern life and the restlessness the consequences of which are omnipresent.   Consequently, they will question to which level the dispersed insecure subjectivities actually can be linked? If the general insecurity points to the very essence of all that we share, but in the same time of all that makes us different from the other, can we find a practical model that aims towards the wellbeing of all and a joint political action? 

"The third space" tends to present art practices that reflect upon the “selfness” in relation with community and collectivity, as a synonym for a space of solidarity, shared collective experiences, or as important community participation.

The selected works will critically re-examine the concept of community starting from the notion that the mean of existence is primary co-existence, including questions as identity, nationalism, exclusion and the politics of power in the context of the “self” and “otherness.  They will position us to ask about the possibilities and limitations that we are encountering; the question of what our own expectations are in relation to power and freedom; what levels of personal temptations or troubles are at the threshold of tolerance and endurance; allow us to think about how our personal vision can be socially shared; a multitude of questions and dilemmas with regards to personal responsibility, an action and its consequences. 

The exhibition will provide an introduction into a line of specifics of the term solidarity, from today's histories and cultures and shows how these are constantly superimposed on the present demanding that we actively engage in transforming our own understanding of the cross-cultural relations. 

Therefore, maybe within the border that we are looking for - the imaginary-we are rarely talking about physical spaces, but more about framing and composition of relationships and possibilities, a constellation of influences whose representations are significant now and in the future.