© Image: © Mia Arsenijević
BITTERSWEET
Vernissage: 3 September, 19:00 - 22:00
Exhibition Details:
Bittersweet brings together five artists who explore the complexities of early parenthood through diverse media: embroidery, encaustic painting, comics, digital drawing, and textile. The exhibition addresses the ambivalence of caring for a child—between joy and fatigue, intimacy and isolation—offering a rare space where unsentimental and critical perspectives on parenthood are made visible.
By situating parenthood within broader socio-political frameworks, Bittersweet reveals caregiving as reproductive labor—emotional, temporal, and physical—often rendered invisible in both society and art. The works invite us to rethink gendered expectations, identities in transition, and the cultural structures that shape family life.
Themes:
Special Program:
On Wednesday, 17 September at 19:00, the exhibition Bittersweet concludes with Mental Waxing, a jam session of live music and improvisation.
Curator:
Amalija Stojsavljević (b. 1984, Pančevo) is an art historian, curator, and cultural worker based in Vienna. Her practice critically engages with otherness, reproductive labor, and feminist artistic strategies, often framed through post-Yugoslav and migrant perspectives. She is the author of the forthcoming book Distaff: Contemporary Embroidery in the Former Yugoslav Countries (2025) and editor of the feminist publication Uterus Effects (2020). Her curatorial projects include Doing the Dirty Work (Wienwoche, Vienna 2022) and Hand Job: What We Know About Contemporary Non-Traditional Embroidery (Belgrade/Kranj, 2022–23). Since 2025, she has been part of the artistic team at TEATA, a multilingual theatre in Vienna, where she develops community outreach and inclusive cultural programs.
Featuring:
Marija Todorović’s encaustic paintings emerge from the healing process of postpartum depression.
Mia Arsenijević’s printed and hand-embroidered friezes weave memory and motherhood into layered narratives.
Milena Gajić’s digital drawings confront the invisibility of domestic labor in the life of an artist-mother.
Saša Bezjak’s embroidered textiles map intimate care structures from a feminist perspective.
