The Waste Land

ongoing project

The work titled The Waste Land delves into the landscape of the Serbian part of geographical territory of Banat, situated in the north of the country. The focus of this work is primarily on landscapes and objects from rural areas of Banat that lose population and economic sustainability each year. For me, these places contain a symbolic charge characteristic of a field where history, myth, and local tales intertwine. It can be said that I operate at the crossroads of magical realism and topography, as I map points within the same space where parallel planes of different realities— historical, cultural, folkloric, familial, and personal— intersect. In my inability to fully read through the layers of history embedded in the landscape, I imagine them freely, thus suggesting that historical heritage can be invented, reshaped and intertwined with personal memory.This approach corresponds to the very act of imagining stories or historical texts that are missing.

The work is divided into three sections that emerged in relation to three interconnected motifs:

I Wind Catchers

II Houses Full of Things

III Deep Wells That Speak

The Waste Land is conceived as a whole composed of interconnected fragments— collages, drawings, and photographic records.