Jeudi 28 Août 2008 9:46:15 am

Should I Stay or Should I Go / Solo exhibition by Nada Prlja

Should I Stay or Should I Go

Solo exhibition by Nada Prlja
Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia
04.09.2008- 29.09.2008

Prlja's project Should I Stay or Should I Go is a brutal illustration of the socio-political processes that belong to the current reality of less self-sufficient, financially dependent countries. By raising issues related to fair trade in this post-industrial society, the project strives to communicate with and to alert the public about the workers’ reality of today, with the intention of raising the general awareness and of making a direct change in contemporary society, by blurring the division between financially stronger and weaker societies.

For the opening evening performance, an industrial production line will be relocated to the main space of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje, Macedonia, where employees from MakJeans (one of numerous 'sewing factories' in the Macedonian textile industry) and the artist Nada Prlja herself, will produce a large number of T-shirts, while simulating the current conditions of such textile industries in Macedonia.

The exhibition's title, Should I Stay or Should I Go represents the dilemma embedded within the workers' reality: little hope of progress in the local industry, in which many human rights legislations are being disregarded (long working hours, low salaries, low safety conditions, etc) and the workers' desperate resolution to emigrate elsewhere - in many cases illegally - in the search for better conditions and a better future.

To represent the reality of emigrants, Prlja exhibits four videos filmed in London, in which the artist empathizes with the emigrants' situation and the difficulties, complications and disappointments that can occur while trying to adopt something unknown and otherwise foreign to themselves.


Nada Prlja was born in Sarajevo, moving to Skopje, Macedonia, in 1981. Since 1999 she has been living and working in London. She graduated from the National School of Fine Art (A Levels) and from the Academy of Fine Arts in Skopje, Macedonia and consequently received an MPhil (Master of Philosophy) research degree from the Royal College of Arts, in London, UK.

Nada Prlja is an artist whose work deals with the complex political and social situations within the contemporary world. Her work has been shown internationally and reviewed in Flash Art, Artreview, Time Out, Art News, Third Text, etc.

In this occasion we would like to thank: The Ministry of Culture of Macedonia,
Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia, MakJeans and Aleksandar Magjaroski.

For further info contact the curator Zoran Petrovski at zoran@msuskopje.org.mk, or the artist nada@seriouisinterests.co.uk


Museum of Contemporary Art
Samoilova bb
1000 Skopje
Macedonia
tel. ++389 (2) 311 7734
msuskopje.org.mk

Image: Nada Prlja, project Give 'em Hell, 100 T-shirts, fabric paint (detail)

http://www.seriouisinterests.co.uk

Pokana-Nada-Prlja.jpg, 47,46 kB