Damir Avdagic
Damir Avdagic’s practice deals with issues of historical memory and identity through text, performance and video. The historical background for his work is the conflict in Ex-Yugoslavia, which makes up a central part of his family history and which he uses as an entry point to address themes such as immigration, shifting political systems and generational relationships.
Avdagic’s working material is words: spoken narratives that are collected by speaking to members of the Ex-Yugoslav diaspora and that relate to experiences surrounding WW2, the fall of socialism and the eruption of the conflict in the 90s. This material is activated through strategies of performance, such as re-readings, translations, re-enactments etc. and subsequently filmed and developed into moving image installations.
In Avdagic’s works, narratives become transferable between “author” and performer. By having members of his own generation perform the words and actions of the generations before (and vice versa) he seeks to reflect on how history stretches across time and how the past echoes in the present.
Damir Avdagic is educated at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (MFA, 2008-2014) and from The University of California, UCLA (MFA, 2013-2016) He is a Fulbright Fellow and recipient of other prestigious grants from the Norway-America Foundation, Office of Contemporary Art, Norwegian Cultural Council & Danish Cultural Council. His work has been shown at 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica, Entree Gallery Norway, Kunsthall Charlottenborg Copenhagen & Kristiansand Kunsthall Norway amongst others. He was awarded the BKH’s Photo Art Prize at Fotogalleriet, Oslo in 2014.