Slavica Janešlieva

At the 60th International Venice Biennale, the Republic of North Macedonia will be represented by the project Inter Spem et Metum (Between Hope and Fear), conceived by artist Slavica Janešlieva. The commissioner of the project is Dr. Dita Starova Qerimi, director of the National Gallery of the Republic of North Macedonia, and the curator is Dr. Ana Frangovska, curator advisor at the National Gallery of Macedonia.

“It is only with the heart that one can see clearly, for the most essential things are invisible to the eye.”

—Hans Christian Andersen

Can we substitute the word “beauty” with the words “respect”, “freedom”, “love”, “tolerance”, “approval”? Can we accept someone for all that he/she/it is and because we know their essence?

The transmedial and transnarrative project Inter Spem et Metum by Slavica Janešlieva represents a visually cleansed and conceptually envisaged spatial installation, which casts us into the civilizational debris in a rather sensitive and imaginative manner. Through multidimensional media platforms and materials, such as feathers, LED neon signs, projections, and mirrors, Janešlieva launches us into several conceptual-narrative matrices, where she urges us to face the feeling of being a stranger, the one present everywhere: in me, in you, in them, in us…

Namely, she challenges us with acceptance or non-acceptance of the distinct labels from the ones familiar and ordinary to the masses; encompassing differences based on gender, sexual orientation, appearance, demeanor, attitude, illness, nationality, religion, language, political orientation…

She tickles our feelings of self-stigma, auto censorship, self-criticism, due to the imposed expectations.

However, being different carries the potential for transformation. Just as in the natural selection processes, the mutation increases the likelihood of either a failure in the adaptation or the emergence of a new variant, much superior to its predecessor. Alternatively, the transformational power of “the other” can be understood to derive from the psychological pain and suffering, as alternative sources of inspiration and motivation to rise above the criticism and denunciation, common societal effects of “being different.”

It is up to each of us to find the swan within.

—Dr. Ana Frangovska

Slavica Janešlieva (b. 1973, Skopje, SFR Yugoslavia) lives and works in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia. BFA (1996) and MFA (1998) from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. PhD (2008) in Comparative Studies from Philological Faculty “Blaže Koneski”, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje. She has had 30 individual exhibitions in Skopje, Sarajevo, New York, Utrecht, Bratislava, Boswil, Bitola and participated in more than 300 group exhibitions all over the world. Winner of several national and international awards in visual arts and printmaking, she works as a full professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje and is the current Dean of the faculty.

Commissioner: Dita Starova Qerimi

Curator: Ana Frangovska