List of programs

SAMPLE HALL

On Saturday, December 3, at 1 p.m., we will present a new art installation, the Sample Hall, realized by the author Jelena Micić. Through a selection of items from her family archive, artist Jelena Micić highlights segments of the life of the famous Yugoslav women’s leather footwear and plastic factory “Leda”, founded in 1961 in Knjaževac.

Preserved leather samples, information about their origin and routes of material exchange, as well as final products for the former domestic and foreign markets, are part of this artwork. Samples-objects which artist’s family members of three generations produced, accumulated and used in their everyday life and at work, were purposefully placed in the original museum’s display cases as a temporary intervention and addition to the current exhibition Museum laboratory. We can follow the issues of procurement, production and organization of self-management relations in the factory through photographs, printed material and personal items of the author’s grandfather Vojislav Micić, one of the founders of “Leda”. Scattered worn shoes, the same ones that the author’s grandmother put together in the factory preparation department, underline several segments of the permanent exhibition that can be indirectly connected to the complex process of this kind of factory production, and more broadly, the process of industrialization.

At the same time, this art installation re-examines the existing structure from a materialist-feminist perspective. On the one hand, it brings into focus the issue of resources through the depiction of a factory delegation’s trip to Kenya in order to find a source of cheap leather for the shoe soles, and on the other, it opens the women’s question through documentary material that includes artist’s children’s drawings with the motif of the Little Mermaid, the logo of the factory portraying Leda and the swan, as well as photos of the visit of the famous singer Lepa Brena during the 1980s, in the decade when “Leda” recorded its highest production. The factory was privatized, like many others, in 2004 after the political and economic changes following the breakup of Yugoslavia and the socialist system.

The art installation Sample Hall was realized by the artist Jelene Micić in cooperation with the curators Simona Ognjanović and Marija Đorgović. At the same time, it is the last in a series of interventions on the permanent exhibition this year with a focus on the industrial heritage of Yugoslavia, which the curators of the Museum primarily viewed from the perspective of the topic Workers and Factories. This exhibition was released as part of the “Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos” Award, received by Jelena Micić in 2021.

Jelena Micić lives and works in Vienna as an independent artist and artistic director of the art and activism festival WIENWOCHE. Her artistic practice includes ready-made installations and in-situ interventions exploring the socio-political aspects of colour and colour systems. She was the winner of the Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos Award (2021), and the Ö1 Talentestipendium Bildende Kunst scholarship (2018) and kultüř gemma! (2018). Some of the exhibitions she participated in are Alles in Ordnung (Wien Museum, MUSA Startgalerie. Vienna), Red Analysis (ULUS. Belgrade), Multiple singularities (xhibitE. Vienna), Moleraj (Temporary Parapet. Bratislava), I Learned from the Best (DKSG. Belgrade), kunstnah/kunstfern (IG Bildende Kunst. Vienna), Anekumena (Youth Centre Belgrade).

  • Day: 03.12.2022-01.07.2023
  • Time: 13:00

The Origins: The Background for Understanding the Museum of Yugoslavia

Creation of a European type of museum was affected by a number of practices and concepts of collecting, storing and usage of items.

New Mappings of Europe

Museum Laboratory

Starting from the Museum collection as the main source for researching social phenomena and historical moments important for understanding the experience of life in Yugoslavia, the exhibition examines the Yugoslav heritage and the institution of the Museum

A BRIEF FAMILY HISTORY