The exhibition ‘Suck Squeeze Bang Blow‘ by the young artist Dina Rončević brings all the segments of her four-year process of acquiring the car mechanic diploma, simultaneously transforming it into her graduate theses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. Dina\’s work examines gender roles in the academic and educational environment as well as the conditions through which identity is created within the wider social context.
One of the outcomes of the project from the ‘retraining’ from an artist to a car mechanic is an artist book in which the documentation of the evolution of work through the years is presented. In addition to spatial installations and collages, the exhibition also brings the administrative records of registration to the driving classes, the high school re-training program and the accompanying documents, documentation of buying a motorcycle ( driven as a part of the project ), artist’s final paper submitted at the school for car mechanic as well as an article written for the graduation at the program of the Center for Women’s Studies.
The exhibition takes place in the framework of The Academy Files, Part II, belonging to the long-term project dealing with the relationship between institutional and non-institutional education in the field of contemporary art. The project started in 2008 with an exhibition of the works by the former students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. The exhibition presented the graduate theses projects which might be characterized as “problematic” from the perspective of the highly traditional educational model at the art academy. The project considered these works as the possible precedents functioning as small shifts from the expected and conventional modes of teaching and receiving knowledge at the Academy. In its second part the project will be implemented through exhibitions, workshops and discussions that will continue to open questions related to the modes of operation at the Academy, as well as the roles, positions and responsibilities of educational institutions today.
Dina Rončević was born 1984 in Zagreb, where she completed the School of applied arts and design in 2002. In 2003 she enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and in 2007 she started retraining as a car mechanic, which she finished in 2009. In the same year she completed the program at the Center for Women’s Studies and in 2010 joined the program ‘Legal clinic for gender equality’. She recently exhibited at several group exhibitions such as ‘Superturist’ at G-MK, Zagreb; Salon of Revolution, HDLU, 2008 and ‘Kiberdzezva’, Galženica Gallery, 2008.
Organizers: Institute for duration, location and variables and G-MK
Curators: Ana Kovačić & Ana Kutleša