The installation Broken Document Breaks Into Poetry was part of the group exhibition “Whiteness as Property. The Conditions of Racism and Ownership” curated by Ana Hoffner ex-Prvulovic* at the Künstlerhaus, Vienna (12.02.-06.06.2022). Photo: MNagl.

https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/408981/whiteness-as-property/

-Text by Ana Hoffner ex-Pervulovic*

Ivanoska works with Oscar Hansen’s the theory of Open Form, which questions hierarchies through the construction of new forms in order enable participation for everybody. The moment in which structures become visible, as texts on surfaces or left at the edge of unrecognisability is central to Ivanoska’s practice. The wooden objects in Fairy Hair investigate the “samovila”, Macedonian mythical figures from the time before Christianisation, which we encounter only as a trace of an engraved text. The word “samo vila” refers to an independent woman (samo = own, vila = will) who communicates mostly with other women, scaring men. In more recent times, “samovila” was also known as a word for plants considered weeds. Robust walnut wood is the carrier of this text, which is barely legible and develops its own meaning. The text establishes a genealogy of the destroyed history of Eastern European women. This continues in the textile work and a mural from the Document Missing series, inspired by Catherine Malabou’s La plasir effacé: Clitoris et pensée – testimonies of resistance against the patriarchal possession of women. Ivanoska validates handicrafts as a medium of political and social value. She embroiders, paints, and engraves, recording personal observations that inflame confusion, frustration, limitation, and emotional struggle. Domestic work and rituals are closely related to intimacy, isolation, and contemplation, with solid links to female identity. Individual efforts to substitute privacy for public space and fight inequality have barely been recognised or, in most cases, simply been forgotten over time.

List of works:

• Fairy Hair, 2016/2017, 4 wooden objects, graphite and colorless wax on walnut, each 30 x 30 x 2 cm;
• Document Missing: Performance No. 10 (Needlework on Women’s Body and Sexuality), 2021, thread and graphite on wool and wood, 270 x 700 cm;
• Document Missing: Performance No. 11 (Wall-engraving: Broken Document Breaks Into Poetry), 2022, wall-engraving, pigment, dimensions variable.