May 7th, 2008 // by Nataša Velikonja
 flickr photo by cemre Europe is boring. Boring for its self-sufficiency, among its own
boundaries; Europe is a jail of virtual affluence and credit standard
in which migrants without asylum, lesbians without lovers,
intellectuals without mass media, and the homeless without comrades are
wandering around. Europe is boring for its “white” conviction that it
is better than the others, as it is supposedly the cradle of education,
culture and literature. It is boring in its perpetual ecstasy with its
fat kisses and broken glass on our lips. It is boring with its
perpetual integration, which is being swallowed as a sacrificed young
body, while images of hatred, slaughter and genocide are whirling in
its eyes. Europe is boring because of its ritualized oblivion and
ritualized machines of desire that never stop their craving.
|
 Stephan Lupino
Friday, May 31st,
2007 // by Maja Hrgović
I found out about
the Stephen Lupino’s exhibition at the Modern gallery “Josip
Račić” from a colleague at work. The pretty neutral title,
“Wonderful creatures”, did not reveal much about the thematic
framework nor the content of the exhibition. Lupino is not among the
artists I hold in high esteem, nor do I believe that his photographic
work could hold any pleasant surprises for me: his photoshop-edited
female nudes (defined by their commercial value, that of getting
published in the Playboy magazine) are very cheap and corny, and they
cannot, even by a long shot, be described as surprising, fresh, nor
artistic. The thing that made me look more closely at the invitation
was my colleague’s reaction to it…
|
May 23rd 2007 // by Krešimira Gojanović
The word “witch”
bears many negative connotations in our culture. This is indicative
of the fear and reluctance of the patriarchal understanding of the
world to accept, and furthermore, incorporate the archetype of a
strong, creative and intelligent woman - a woman who, in a self-aware
and emancipated manner, like the male “creators”, creates magical
spiritual worlds according to her own free will and design. To be
able to understand the primal causes of this fear, we have to look
deeper into the past, into the ancient, pre-Christian cultures. Those
cultures worshipped female divinities, often in the form of a
tri-fold goddess who symbolized the three aspects of woman and of
nature, with which the woman was equated with.
|
 Adrienne Rich May 18th,
2007 // by Darija Žilić
In the novel
„Božanska glad“ (Divine Hunger) by Slavenka Drakulić, the
heroine meets one handsome and exotic Joao Amado at a library.
Introducing himself, he tells her that he has written one
semi-successful novel, that he is currently writing a history book
about the natives of the Amazon area, but that he also works as an
editor in a publishing company because “who could possibly make a
living as a writer in a such a poor country as Brazil.“ Then he
asks her if she writes as well. At first, her answer is “no, no“,
but then she says: “I write essays, essays mostly…"
|
January 15th 2007 by Đurđa Knežević
If a feminist workshop asked its
participants to recount some of the pervading stereotypes about
women, they wouldn't nearly be able to call to mind a half of what a
newly-launched Web portal žena.hr
(woman.hr), ''the first genuine Web
portal for Croatian women'', has listed with a sovereignty of someone
who trully KNOWS. Precisely, someone who is so immersed in the system
of stereotypes, to the point of being utterly unable to grasp an
alternative option of their own existence.
''Žena.hr is the first genuine Web
portal for women in Croatia''. This is the first sentence following
the headline welcoming with which ''the first and the genuine'' (as
in the Bible or in contemporary Muslim societies, where of all the
women at a man's disposal there is yet the One, who is ''first and
genuine'') portal introduces the audience into its own virtual
women's world, which may not even be the first of a kind, but
is definitely ''genuine'', at least according to their conviction.
|
|