Selma Selman
Selma Selman was born in 1991 in Bihac. She graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Banja Luka, at the painting department. In 2013 Selma spent three weeks at the summer academy in Salzburg, supervised by prof. Tania Bruguera. She has received awards for her paintings (2014), graphic design (2014) and intemedia art (2013) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Banja Luka, and Dogma Arts, the award for the best visual artwork (2013) in Banja Luka, and also the second place at the competition “B&H in EU” in Zenica (2013). She has participated in: 2014 International Meeting “My Country Staglinec” (Croatia); International Festival of Performing Arts “Week of Live Art” (Croatia); Bauhaus Goes South-East (Sarajevo); Video Festival Miden (Kalamatas); Multimedia art project Video Edition 01 (Museum of Contemporary Art, Banja Luka); 2013 Regional festival of independent art scene BL-ART (Banja Luka); International land art festival Hay (Osijek); Feminist Cultural Festival Be-Fem (Belgrade); International Congress of Contemporary Arts And Theory FORMER WEST (Berlin).
Solo exhibitions
2013 Poetics of the soul, Gallery Udas (Banja Luka); Love is the most beautiful when you are waiting for it, Gallery San Fedele (Milan); 2009 First solo exhibition, Gallery Una (Bihać)
Selected exhibitions
2014 Calling Carts, Galery 8 (Budapest); We want you, The 10th Berlin International Directors Lounge (Berlin); Minimum/Maximum 3 – International group exhibition of miniature (Banja Luka); 2013 Asymmetrical me – group exhibition of intermedial arts, (Trebinje).
Artist statement
The basis of my research is, through paintings, installation, performance, photography and video work, to show to the whole society the picture of the lives of Roma. Also, because I belong to the Roma population I use my identity and experiences in this research.
With my culture, tradition and customs, by using pictures and sounds, I teach those people who do not belong to the Roma population about us, and I talk about all the problems we are all experiencing nowadays. My works are also general ideas which serve to excel and stimulate individuality and also make it stronger for not only the Roma, but also all human societies in general.
By constantly learning and getting to know myself and my ethnic group I give the society the information which they did not have earlier and give them an opportunity to take part in my work. All my works are products from my real and everyday life. They are reality. They are not fiction. Art itself for me represents a confessional and also a game because I have a need to communicate with the world.
My position and task in the system of art is to make a contemporary picture that will mean something to those who want equality in the society. Exploring the presence of the Roma in the society, according to me is connected with destruction and the decay of sociological and cultural identity of human beings. In most of my works the main character is me, because I think that is important to take part in something what you believe in.
Art serves me as an escape from bad things that I am confronted within the community, not hiding who I really am. The construction of my work evokes the spectator to the content of the work and they are accepted in to performance. With criticizing the society I want to make people understand it.