I would like to use the funding for developing an installation about the art of memory with the use of video and textiles. In the tradition of the Dartington Arts College, I intend to create a physical storage in the architectural sense – a sort of the life-size tent featuring canvas on which one can project the images. In this way, I would be using physical and psychological aspects of memory together, creating an immersive experience in the space of installation. I am starting from the experience of loss and aim to develop arts-based research about the representation of the person or a place through memory. By using photography (personal images) and textiles (shirts), I want to create a world within the gallery that appears familiar to the members of the audience that has never met the person that inspired my work. Motivated by the work of Do Ho Suh, I want to develop an archive of the person rather than a personal archive that empirically resonates with the public. I have started the exploration of this at Centrala Space, Birmingham last year where I was focussed on memory, community and conflict and would like to develop it further.
I am very impressed with the history of Dartington College of Arts and would like to access the archives, sites and have conversations with the people who have experienced it in order to utilise its legacy in Fine Arts in particular for my own work.
I am an artist and research professor with more than 25 years’ experience of executing projects with artists, academics and community groups. I delivered creative projects for Royal Opera House, Barbican, Arts Council England, John Lewis, Al Jazeera, Campbell Works, Oxo Tower, LIFT, London Film Festival. My artwork has been displayed at the Olympic stadium in London and as part of the collaborative project by Vlatka Horvat at the Croatian pavilion of Venice Biennale 2024.
I have shown at a range of galleries: e.g. Trans-Siberian rail (2011), Museum of Yugoslav History (2011), October Salon (2013), Somerset House (2015), Centrala Space (2024).
My research has been published in 20 books and interdisciplinary journals. I am on the editorial board of Journal of Arts and Communities and I co-chair the Memory & Arts Working Group of Memory Studies Association. I am an Associate of The Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN), where I established the Postsocialism and Art research platform with the British Society of Aesthetics (2019) fund.
My exhibition at Cultural Centre of Belgrade (2022), resulted in the inclusion of my artwork in Serbia’s arts curricula and collection.
My social practice centers on the theme of identity – lost and regained through leaving home. It explores the sense of belonging and the adjustment to the new environment. This allows development of plethora of themes in my artwork – past, roots, migration, displacement, resettlement.
Yes, PhD in Arts and Computations Technology from Goldsmiths University, London obtained in 2017.
Yes:
AHRC Networking Grant (Co-Investigator), Peace and Conflict Cultural Network, 2021
Science and Technology Small Mission Grant, European Union, COST Action 2021, 2022
Scholarly Research Grant, Association of Art Historians, 2020 (monograph, SANU)
Small Grant, Decolonising the Arts, British Society of Aesthetics, 2020
Mobility Grant, Valleta European Capital of Culture, Roberto Cimetta, 2018
Enrichment Fund, American Association of Geographers, 2016
Artistic Award, Wedding Bellas, European Cultural Foundation 2010
AHRC Networking grant, Balkanising Taxonomy project, 2008
Mobility Award, European Cultural Foundation, Identities in between, Belgrade, 2008
As a socially engaged artist, I have often created the projects within communities upon learning about them. I usually work collaboratively, but I run the research Centre for Enrichment in Culture and Identity at Buckinghamshire New University.
Three works from the series “Wedding Bellas” are in the national art collection of Serbia which I have donated in 2022 after my solo exhibition at the Cultural Centre of Belgrade.
I wrote about my work in academic outputs which feature my artwork.
Books
Contributor (cover) Reconciliation by Stealth by Kostovicova, D., Cornell University Press 2023
Co-Editor (book) Contemporary Ideas on the Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory and Photography, IGI Global 2023
Contributor (chapter) Belgrade’s Protest Museum: Digital Memorialisation as Continuing the Event. Memorial Museum in the Digital Age, REFRAME 2022
Contributor (chapter) Belgrade Log (BG:LOG): democratising urban heritage through participatory mapping, Creative Activism: Research, Pedagogy and Practice, (Ed. Tilley, E.) Cambridge Scholars Publishers 2022
Contributor (chapter) Digitalising the Museum, Handbook of Research on Museum Management in the Digital Era. IGI Global 2022
Contributor (chapter) Materialising Site. Performance Making and the Archive. (Eds: Potdar, A. & Saha, S.), Routledge 2022
Contributor (chapter) Our House in the Middle of the Street, Art and the City: Worlding the Discussion through a Critical Artscape (Eds.: Luger, J. & Ren, J.) Routledge 2017
Contributor (chapter) Identity and Migration in Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Series: International Perspectives on Migration, Vol. 13 (Ed. La Barbera), M., Springer 2015
Contributor (chapter) Coda. Audiovisual Media and Identity in Southeastern Europe (Eds. Pistrick, E. Scaldaferri, N. & Schwörer, G.), Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2011
Contributor (cover) Mortal Cartographies by Gunaratnam, Y., Palgrave 2013
Yes:
DAA residency, Bodrum, Turkey, 2025
Hybrid Landscape, Centrala Space, Birmingham 2024
Museum of Yugoslav History, Belgrade 2011
Fourthland, London 2012
Holloway Old Fire Station, London 2011
Bridging Arts, London 2011
Email: nela011@hotmail.com
Address: 75 Hind Grove, London, E146HT, GB
Local Authority: Tower Hamlets, London
