Artist Statement
Valerija Cerovec is an interdisciplinary artist and published fiction author working with text, textiles, found objects, archival paraphernalia and fabricated materials. The starting point for her work is a fictional story that draws inspiration from real places, people, or events. Typically, the text explores closeness, intimacy, and identity through relationships, everyday events, bodily sensations, and sensory experiences. The simultaneity of different, sometimes opposing voices creates a blurry, enmeshed narrative that is presented to the audience as if on trial for truthfulness. The ephemera of found and hand-made objects attempts to confirm the exactness of the story. Objects such as notebooks, photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, clothing and accessories, and other materials are additions to the story. They serve as evidence that the voices are valid and accurate, blurring the line between what is real and what is imagined. The presentation of objects takes an archival form, whether as a book, a lecture performance, or a research database, balancing the line between an academic, scientific, or journalistic study of the world and intuitive, dreamlike experiences of being in it.
Works and exhibitions
2024
Cuckoo, 37th Youth Salon, Croatian Association of Visual Artists, Zagreb
2023
Hotel Horizont, novel, edited by Seid Serdarević, published with Fraktura, Zagreb
Cuckoo, Gallery Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb
2021
The Club of Innocent Readers, Gallery Prozori/City Library S.S.Kranjčević, Zagreb
2019
September 23, a day when nothing out of the ordinary happened, Whitechapel Gallery, London
2018
In between bodies; slightly changeable, collab. with Antonija Bačić, Gallery Šira, Zagreb
HOME, choreographer S. Pregrad, Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb
In between bodies; heartbeat or pulse, collab. with Antonija Bačić, Pogon Jedinstvo, Centre for Independent Culture and Youth, Zagreb
How I’ve mistaken my wife for a woman I didn’t love, poetry, published at Kritična masa, Zagreb
2017
September 23, a day when nothing out of the ordinary happened, Greta Creative Network, Zagreb
HOME, choreographer S. Pregrad, Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb
Essay: Showpiece, Showpiece, Gallery Galženica, Velika Gorica
TASK – HOME, choreographer S. Pregrad, Platforma, Pogon Jedinstvo, Centre for Independent Culture and Youth, Zagreb
2016
Debris, Final Student Exhibition, Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb
Debris, Art Hoc, Gallery Klovićevi dvori, Zagreb
The pain of leaving, short video for the script written by Ljubica Letinić and Ante Perković, Croatian National Television, Zagreb
Reading, Process of Initiation, Pogon Jedinstvo, Centre for Independent Culture and Youth, Zagreb
2015
Austerity, Pogon Jedinstvo, Centre for Independent Culture and Youth, Zagreb
Gestures, 7, Gallery Greta, Zagreb
we _now, Gallery Miroslav Kraljević, Zagreb
Inside/out, Festival STIFF, Art-cinema, Rijeka
Sound Exhibition, KSET, Zagreb
Heinzelova BB, Final Student Exhibition, Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb
2014
In search of lost time, Clothed Thought, Gallery Vladimir Nazor, Zagreb
In search of lost time, 32nd Youth Salon, Croatian Association of Artists, Zagreb
Education
2014 BA Fashion Design, Faculty of Textile Technology, University of Zagreb
2016 MA New Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb
2016 student exchange at The School of Art, Architecture and Design, MET, London
2017 BA Comparative Literature, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Societies
Croatian Association of Fine Artists