Anna Jarosz is a Polish artist who focuses on gendered trauma and abjected bodies. By investigating these issues through the lens of a still and moving camera but also by building spatial installations that combine sculptural objects, sound, video, and other media, she focuses on trauma, trauma being a very personal experience to an individual or as a collective experience shared by many.

In this episode, we talked about how she found the right medium for her artistic expression and the challenges she faced due to peer pressure and the self-invented misconception that photography is the only medium she can do. We also go deeper into her subject matter collective trauma and explore what it really means for her, why she is working on this topic, and how it's perceived by the public.

Anna's website: www.annajarosz.com

Anna's Vimeo: vimeo.com/anaofeliona

Anna's Instagram: instagram.com/ofelionka/

David Pujado is a Belgrade-based photographer, organizer/producer, and curator from Barcelona. He's also the founder of Bartcelona Gallery and Belgrade Photo Month Festival.  

In this episode, David appeases my curiosity and talks about how he moved to Belgrade, gives valuable insight into starting a festival out of starch and the dynamics of local exhibitions.

https://www.belgradephotomonth.org/en/home/

Erick Sanchez is a painter from Los Angeles, currently based in Buenos Aires. He was traveling in the Balkans when we met and his bird-house people captured my attention, leading me to want to learn more about him and his work.

In this episode, Erick explains the story behind his imagery, how he started using plasma as a medium and his view on collaboration, finding kismet when he started traveling, and the difficulties of being an artist on the road. Sitting down with him for this conversation was a fascinating and thought-provoking experience!

Erick's website: http://napsanchez.com

Erick's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erick.sanchez.75457081

Erick's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/napoleon.75

I met Mabel Vicentef, during the 5th edition of Zen Opuzen Festival. She was there to paint one of her beautiful murals on her away back to Argentina. She primarily describes herself as a mural artist and travels all around the world to paint! I felt really lucky to spend a few days with her prior to recording this episode.

This was an insightful conversation for me to find more about her past in set design, how she likes big and open spaces, the social interaction she receives from painting murals, and the intimacy of her one-line drawings. Listening back to this episode, I can't put into words how much I appreciate her outspokenness about being a female mural artist, the gender gap in Argentina, and sustaining a living as a mural artist.

Thanks, Mabel for being so frank with me! 😘

Mabel's website: http://mabelvicentef.com/

Mabel's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mabelvicentef/

Mabel's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mabelvicentef/

Danilo is a Croatian painter, based in Venice. He was in Belgrade for his solo exhibition at U10, named "Be careful what you wish for". The cover image for the exhibition arose some questions somewhere deep in my mind and I took advantage of the free day he had and invited him for an episode.

During the recording, Danilo mentioned the influences he had and explained his reason for painting from small to medium-sized works, as well as his choice of colors. We talked about the difficulties and benefits of being part of a collective and sharing a studio space, living in Venice, having day jobs to create, his family's support for him to study art, and the general feeling he gets from the artworks created by Balkan artists.

Jovana Banović is a Serbian-born artist and archaeologist based in Munich. Through contemporary herbariums and analog photography, she researches mutual observation and admiration between humans and nature.

Jovana contact me right after our Kickstarter campaign ended and expressed her interest in collaborating with iksvy art. Her herbariums were speaking to me and I was able to see what we could do in the future. I invited her to the studio to talk about our new project "Montemero Art Residency" and record an episode for the podcast. As it went on, we started to discover how similar we really were and the episode turned into a cross-interview. :D

On a personal level, this was an interesting episode listen to. Not just because we had a lot in common but also our sprouting friendship was documented on the spot.

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/sporaherbarium/

Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/spora_herbarium/

Behence- https://www.behance.net/yovanabanoacd5

My guest for this episode is Clément Bedel, a French artist based out of Belgrade. Over a month ago, I saw his exhibition, "Shimmering Through Reality", in KC Grad and my curiosity to understand his haunting images peaked immediately as the imagery caused me to picture myself in one of the abandoned factories I've visited here in Belgrade. Not only do we talk about what's behind these paintings, but how he went from politial science to focusing on the arts in the first place, his transition from video art to painting, why Belgrade, and a critique of the local and global art scene.

Website: https://www.clementbedel.com/shimmering-through-reality

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clementbedel/

KC Grad exhibition: https://www.facebook.com/pg/kcgrad/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10162061280955727&ref=page_internal

Pilotenkueche Residency: http://www.pilotenkueche.net/

Evita Goze is a Latvian curator, artist, and writer currently based out of Riga.

This was a tough episode to record, both for technical and personal reasons. I worked with Evita in 2017 at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, and she's one of the people that I've learned the most from. After a year and a half, we got a chance to meet up in Belgrade and work together again, thanks to her involvement in Belgrade Photo Month where she curated the exhibition, "ENTER: Photobooks from the Baltics".

In this episode, we talk about her beginnings as a journalist, her photography, much much more!

Nikita is a young photographer from Moscow who was in Belgrade for Belgrade Photo Month, where he won the 3rd prize in Young Talents Competition. Despite the topic of his work, custom/handmade sex toys, he seemed so shy that it made me wonder what took him to that point of curiosity. As we spoke, I got a better idea of his reasons, his worldview and who he is…

Joan Alvado is a Barcelona-based photographer who I met during his time in Belgrade for Belgrade Photo Month. This was the first time being introduced to his work, and the exhibition, which was about Cuban Muslims, intrigued me. I wanted to know more about this person who photographed a subject so unknown to me, and how/why he chooses his projects.