Tanja Softić’s work addresses factors of cultural hybridity that shape the identity and world view of an immigrant: exile, longing, translation, and memory. The visual vocabulary of her work suggests a displaced existence: fragmented memories, adaptation, revival, and transformation. For Softic, memory is the virtual self and, paradoxically, our most authentic self. Her work is informed by the interest in overlays of personal and historical memory, in the larger conversations on cultural identity, displacement and witnessing the crumbling of the world order based on the concept of nation-state in post- 9/11 world.
This ART 158 lecture took place on February 26, 2020, in the Art & Art History Building at the University of Utah. Made possible through the generous support of the Carmen Morton Christensen Endowment, the Department of Art & Art History, and the College of Fine Arts.