IN THE NAME OF MOTHER, LAST NAME OF FATHER
solo show by Nadja Kracunovic
05.09.2024 Museum of Contemporary Arts, North Macedonia
The solo exhibition ‘’In the Name of Mother, in the Last Name of Father’’ by the Serbian artist Nadja Kracunovic [Nađa Kračunović] will open next Thursday the 5th of September at 20h in the Museum of Contemporary Arts Skopje.
The exhibition examines the museum as a radical space where tradition meets contemporary life of marriage as resistance rather than a social norm, and intergenerational mother-daughter bonding. It tackles the female inheritance from both parents and offers strategies for survival in patriarchal societies treating the act of marrying as an act of resistance.
Decisions to marry, divorce, and remarry arise from various factors such as legal, social, emotional, economic, political, practical, and romantic. For some of these reasons, in the year 2024, the artist is marrying a person with a different nationality, while her mother remarried and changed the previous husband's last name after 30 years. The act of both literally and metaphorically abandoning their last name—the sole inheritance from the artist’s biological father—becomes a radical decision. The process of marriage becomes an exploration of marriage as an intergenerational act within the family, delving into desires, societal norms, and the complex bureaucratic procedures involved in these actions.
The exhibition gathers several pieces, including the video ‘’The Bride’’, which documented two marriage processes in Serbia, and Germany. Investigating the issue of the last name as heritage, a tool to resist and locate, the piece includes talkies with the artist’s mother and her mother, while recording it in the form of an interview, questionnaire, spontaneous chat, and storytelling. The mothers and daughters are preparing for the ceremony which includes choosing the bridal dresses, asking questions about the fathers, entering long and complex bureaucratic procedures, making decisions, and sharing.
The performance done by the artist and her mother titled ‘’U tvoje ime’’ (In your Name) will open the exhibition where two brides will be performing the letters to each other among the audience.
Nadja is one of the winners of the award "Most Successful Author and Work" of the 14th International Biennial of Young Artists "Buđenje" from 2023 and together with the exhibition of the other winner, the artist Serhat Emurai will open the exhibitions curated by Iva Dimovski, Bojana Janeva and Nikola Uzunovski.
We asked Nadja about the performance with her mother, the process of exhibition-making, and the layers of the film that will be shown in the museum. The conversation was conducted by a Serbian art manager and producer Uros Rankovic [Uroš Ranković].
Uros: The video piece 'The Bride' is a central piece of your exhibition. How did the idea of documenting two marriage processes in different countries come about, and how does this duality of locations contribute to the narrative you're trying to build about heritage and resistance?
Nadja: Whenever someone asks me why I got married, I say it's for both practical and romantic reasons. I love this practicality wrapped in romance—an actual romance between two people who care for each other, one of whom holds a non-EU passport.
There are many reasons why marriage offers practical advantages. However, this piece is about using this often-imposed social norm (marriage as a marker of success) to address a woman's ability to resist from within. That's the part of this work that wasn't planned and could never have been planned.
My mother wanted to change her last name, so I gave her some money to do it. Her partner proposed shortly after, and she decided to go about it that way. On the other hand, I proposed to my partner. We agreed on the practicalities of our romance, and after a very long bureaucratic procedure, we got a date—my biological father's birthday. Both marriages happened in July, for different reasons, in different countries.
So, the film isn't really a film, and it doesn't fall into the category of video art, either. It's documentation with narration, as I like to call it. Real, unplanned footage that gained significance when pieced together proving this intergenerational heritage and knowledge we exchange within the female line of the family. I see it as a method of surviving, not only prosperity.
Uros: The performance 'In Your Name' features both you and your mother, which adds a deeply personal layer to the exhibition. What was it like working with your mother on this project, and how do you think this intergenerational exchange will improve the exhibition's overall message?
It was very intense, honestly—changing roles, having mutual supervision, dissecting the diary texts, and piecing them together. Pulling content from one's gut is always a challenge, especially when that someone is your own mother.
As for the intergenerational message, I've noticed results—if you can call them that—from the conversations I've had with both my mother and grandmother. We talked about female ‘’duties’’, motherhood, the world of fathers, norms, social constructs, and beliefs that I had to unlearn to be able to learn anew. These kinds of conversations always become heavy because I get angry that they were born into such systems, and they get bothered by me trying to teach them. In the end, we always hug, because the intergenerational—rather, intergalactic—powers of womanhood prevail. We become aware of the heritage each generation receives and how much of it needs to be left behind or unlearned.
That's why I say, "It took three generations to arrive here, where I am," and that's why I'm excited for the daughters to come—whether born to me or someone else.
Uros: Your work often uses irony to address political, social, and personal issues. What significance does your last name hold, considering that your father wasn't present in your life, and how does this differ from the conventional patriarchal view of a surname?
Nađa: That, in itself, is an irony, and that's how the whole "In the Name of Mother" mission started. I carry that last name around with little or no connection to its owner—my biological father. It bothered me, not just his last name, but the fact that it always has to belong to a man, whether it's a father or a husband. I understand the concept of belonging, so a family can be identified, but in this story, I’m using surnames more metaphorically to represent one's sense of self.
The mission was to break free from his last name, but at the end of the tale, I kept mine for my own reasons, saying, "Today you were born, and I got married and kept your last name, in my own name."
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