Picturing Modernist Future: Women Illustrators and Childhood Conceptions in Socialist Yugoslavia (follow up)

Project activities:

1) Friday, 13.9.2024, 13h

Paper presentation at international conference “War and theatre – A Backward Glance”,  12.–13.10.2024, Kino Šiška, Center urbane kulture Kino Šiška, Trg prekomorskih brigad 3, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

»The Little Prince« Defies Silence. Literary Agency After Migration: Ismet Bekrić, Šimo Ešić, Valerija Skrinjar-Tvrz

Based on interviews with authors and editors of children’s literature, mainly from Bosnia and Herzegovina, who continued their lives and creative paths either in Slovenia or Germany as a result of the war (1992–1995), this paper will analyse the ways and spaces of establishing as well as hindering authorial agency in exile. Following the professional trajectories of children’s writers and editors Ismet Bekrić (1943–), Šimo Ešić (1954–) and Valerija Skrinjar Tvrz (1928–2023), the author will shed light on the institutional forms of production structures, the problems within them, and ask questions about the ideological regimes of the field of intellectual activity in Slovenia and Germany since the 1990s. In this way, the paper will also provide insights into the heterogeneous ways of (non)confronting the fact of the brutal war in Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Slovenian cultural field of the 1990s.

https://maska.si/en/project/war-and-theater-a-backward-glance/

2) Wednesday, 9.10.2024, 12.30

Guest lecture by  Elena Messner (University of Vienna, University of Klagenfurt): Translation of international literature in the interwar Yugoslav feminist magazine Žena danas, Institute of Culture and Memory Studies ZRC SAZU (Trg francoske revolucije 7, 2. floor)

The translation work in the magazine Žena danas (1936–1940) was linked not only to feminist, but also to Marxist and anti-fascist ideals. The translation work was an activist canonisation process that spread the global feminist-anti-fascist discourse through translations in Yugoslavia. It contained feminist-subversive elements as well as elements that did not escape the patriarchal or hegemonic  discourse. What can we learn from this case in terms of feminist theories of translation?

Elena Messner (b. 1983 in Klagenfurt), grew up in Klagenfurt, Ljubljana and Salzburg. She studied Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna and carried out a number of research projects and guest studies in Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Aix-en-Provence, where she also taught at the University of Aix-Marseille. Since 2023, she has been a Senior Scientist (FWF) at the University of Vienna, researching in the Department of Slavonic Studies. Elena Messner teaches at the University of Klagenfurt and is also active as a writer, translator, curator and editor.

https://ikss.zrc-sazu.si/en/dogodki/translation-of-international-literature-in-the-interwar-yugoslav-feminist-magazine-zena

https://www.elena-messner.com/

3) Wednesday, 9.10.2024, 17.00

Presentation of publications by Časopis za kritiko znanosti: Feminism, Art, Literature and The Kurdish Women's Movement, as part of the 30th City of Women Festival, ŠKUC Gallery, Stari trg 21, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

The introduction of the two new publications of the ČKZ journal is centred around the thematic issue of the ČKZ Feminism, Art, Literature, co-edited by dr. Katja Kobolt and dr. Petja Grafenauer, as well as the monograph The Kurdish Women's Movement by Dilar Dirik. Drawing from the post-Yugoslav space, Feminism, Art, Literature places the artistic, literary and, on a wider scale, intellectual work in materiality and sociality, revealing the ways in which they are and have been constituted as spaces where feminism is established as an ideological, methodological, affective and political intervention. In her monograph The Kurdish Women's Movement, sociologist and feminist Dilar Dirik presents not only the history and current practices of the revolutionary Kurdish women's movement, but also the possibilities for political action, including the importance of revolution for women's movements around the world today. Her main objective is to present the purpose of the revolutionary Kurdish women's freedom movement and the scope of its political vision, from the perspective of the movement itself and drawing on its practices, with the hope and desire to build bridges between the different fights for freedom.

Drawing from their own work, the participating women authors, editors and translators questioned the ways and the significance of the past and current feminism in the search for answers to the question of how and where to continue?

https://mestozensk.org/en/festival/2024/dogodek/119498

4) Friday, 11.10.2024, 13.30
Paper presentation at the international symposium “Youth Music since 1945 & Jeunesse Musicale”, Academy of Music, Palača Kazina, Kongresni trg 1, 1000 Ljubljana, Marijan Lipovšek Hall, Slovenia

Mira Voglar and Lidija Osterc: an art-educational tandem encouraging relationships through literary, visual, sound and haptic experiences  

Mira Voglar (1935–), a musicologist, music pedagogue and poet, and Lidija Osterc (1928–2006), a painter and, above all, an illustrator and pedagogue, belonged to the few established artistic tandems for children in Slovenia. Their joint teaching engagement at the Secondary School of Education in Ljubljana led them to create original publications for children, parents and educators. Drawing on the conversation with Mira Voglar as well as her professional discourse on music and aesthetic education, this paper presents selected works of this artistic duo. Their books, like Čirule čarole(1966), Biba buba baja (1979) and Bibarije: pesmi – igre – slike (1982), mix words, sounds, rhythm and pictures to create a sense of touch and movement through abstract shapes, coloured surfaces and the construction of space. The paratextual elements are aimed at adults reading poems and riddles to and with children, and encourage rhythmic touch. The works by Mira Voglar and Lidija Osterc thus represent a programmatic model of a literary-visual-auditory-haptic experience through which readers - children and adults - connect.

Programme: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14hqsIsyjW4bN15v-1U79MEzUPw_qyxQQTD9sGr0-fpM/edit?tab=t.0

Abstracts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HFT7_z09_ftB3DYpZipABxJq01kdkCzAM9g9aqpWjWA/edit?tab=t.0

5) Tuesday, 25.3.2025, 14.45 – 16.15 

Participation in a panel discussion »Academic Mobility and Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities«, 24.–28.03.2025, Marie Curie Alumni Association. Croatian, Hungarian, Slovenia and Western Balkan Chapter joint event / UNIN International Week 2025, University North, Varaždin, Jurja Križanića 31b, 42000 Varaždin, Croatia. 

Participation in a roundtable discussion on various aspects of academic mobility and mental health issues: personal experiences, academic, non-academic, and cross-sectoral spheres—specifics and similarities: working conditions and mental health, gender, social and cultural context, being a foreigner/visitor in a research organization, work and private life, parenthood, motherhood, and infrastructure.

6) Saturday, 21.06.2025, 15.00–17.00

Presentation at and moderation of a panel at the 27th Biennial Conference of the International Research Society for Children's Literature (IRSCL): Borders, Migrations and Liminality, June 21–25, 2025, University of Salamanca, Hospedaria Fonesca, Salamanca, Spain.

More Than Mothers – Spaces of Socialist Sociality 

Based on a multimodal analysis of the organization of space in selected works by Ela Peroci, illustrated by Ančka Gošnik Godec in various editions, and with the help of Henri Lefebvre’s and Homi Bhabha's conceptualizations of space, the presentation focused on the roles and organization of social reproduction as presented in selected children's books. Particular attention was paid to socialist constructions of motherhood, childhood, and women’s authorship (for children): What does the presented organization of spaces of motherhood and of women’s authorship tell us about Yugoslav socialist society and culture, as well as the historical ideas on and the position of women and children within them? The presentation was part of the panel "Third Spaces in Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Children's Literature: Different Perspectives," initiated by Dr. Katja Kobolt in collaboration with researchers Dr. Dubravka Zima and Dr. Jelena Lalatović, Croatia; and Dr. Tijana Tropin, Serbia.

Programme: https://irscl2025salamanca.usal.es/

Abstracts: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/event/52281/submission/312

7) Wednesday, 27.8.2025, 13.30–15.30

Invited lecture at the 3rd interdisciplinary summer schools in humantities “Crossing media boundaries. Gender and writing across artistic media”, organized by The University of Nova Gorica, CEEUPS network Women Writers in History and Women Writers Route Association, University of Nova Gorica, Vipavska cesta 13, Nova Gorica, Slovenia. 

Children's literature and gender: The lens of social reproduction

In the course of modernisation and democratisation processes since the late 19th and especially in the 20th century, women in Europe gradually entered the public sphere and thus also literature and art. In Southeast Europe, particularly in Slovenia, it was children’s literature, in which women writers and artists were able to showcase their creativity and pursue creative work for children as productive work. The reasons and structures that supported the opening up of literary and artistic production for children, also to women art and cultural workers, to a much greater extent than has been the case with the autonomous “high” arts (for adults) are manifold: from ideological, class-cultural-structural-historical reasons that construct and delegate women in natural proximity to children, as well as to material and temporal dimensions of (work in) children’s literature, and not least because of the continuing special status of the institution of autonomous 'high' arts.

In the lecture the conceptual lens of social reproduction was used to provide insights into thr research in socialist children's literature and the reasons for the relative feminisation of cultural production for children. Using selected examples from the growing online collection of Yugoslav women illustrators (hdl.handle.net/20.500.12102/A2.788), the analytical focus was paid to the organisation of reproductive work or care work in relation to artistic work as productive work. 

https://women-writers.net/summer-school-2025-crossing-media-boundaries/

8) Wednesday,17.09.2025, 14.30–15.00

Presentation of a paper at the 10th scientific conference “Research in Education and Training: The Decline of Various Forms of Literacy in Slovenia – Challenges and Opportunities”,17.–18.9.2025, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Aškerčeva 2, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

How to address war and promote peace with children? The (un)exploited potential of literary history on war for peace (and its exploration).

In addition to the nearly half a billion children whose lives are directly affected by war today (UNICEF), children are confronted with the mediatizations of wars framed in the so-called "military-entertainment complex" ("Militaintment," Mirrlees 2020): global media systems including social networks, video games, the film industry, etc. While wars are depicted everywhere, children's education struggles to address with children wars in a way that would strengthen peace. In the past, in post-war Europe and also in Slovenia, which was part of socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1991), education and multilingual cultural education were central pillars of peace education (UNESCO 2002, 8), with the digital revolution and shifts in memory politics, it seems that children's culture about war has lost its significance in peace education. Despite recommendations for interdisciplinary integration (Žbogar 2024), curricula, lists of compulsory and recommended fiction, and library shelves no longer include works on war, especially from Slovenian and former Yugoslav literary and cultural history for children. On the shelves of school and public libraries are also missing works in the native languages of most immigrant children in Slovenia. Based on research into children's and youth literature from the socialist era, two of the fundamental motifs of which were the experience of war and, in particular, children in war, the article problematises the (non)addressing of war with children through the history of children's literature about war. Based on the findings of the role of culture in peace education an critical analysis of past academic discourses on children’s war literature, the contribution articulates proposals for the inclusion of children's literature about war for interdisciplinary integration with the goals of peace education.

https://www.pei.si/konferenca-2025/

9) Friday, 26.09.2025, 15.45–17.45

Presentation of a paper at the international scientific conference of the Association of French Balkan Studies, “Balkan Matters! Material Cultures in the Balkans,” September 25–27, 2025, MUCEM, J4 Fort Saint-Jean, Marseille, France.

“Where have all the books gone?”: Children’s books as mnemonic objects

Departing from the question on today’s places of and for children’s books from the Yugoslav socialist past, the paper proposes a discussion on these “homeless” and “silenced” objects and their ideological, mnemonic, (infra)structural, affective and epistemic afterlives. The “century of the child”, proclaimed by Ellen Key in 1900, really dawned in the Balkans only with the socialist modernisation processes in the second half of the 20th century and it coincided with the century of the book. Children’s books – at the time a mass medium – accompanied children as they grew up. Along with the technological, infrastructural, economic and social development children’s books took then a prominent place among childhood objects: as an educational, ideological, aesthetic, affective and relational object. As an object to be “used” – held, touched, observed, read (also aloud), flipped, learned, sung, danced, drawn or even touched after and sometimes coloured, often in the company of adults – children's book has been a “capsule of materiality” to be spatiotemporally and relationally enacted as a “plaything” in an “embodied-meaning making process” (Veryeri Alaca 2019) producing a situated sociality. 

Despite the fact that children’s books from the socialist period, are only in rare and most prominent (and fantastic) cases, reissued children’s books from the socialist past can however become also “disobedient objects” or “counter memorials” (Young 1992), enabling the observation of mnemonic practises working against hegemonic cultural politics.

https://mucem.org/en/evenement/balkan-matters-material-cultures-in-the-balkans/

10) Saturday, 22.11. 2025, 10h

Presentation of the paper "The Third Dimension: Yugoslav Socialist Children's Literature and the Memory of War" as part of the academic panel "A Multiperspectival View of the Memory of War in Eastern European Children's Literature: Sacrifice, Justice, Peace" at the 57th Annual Conference of the American Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) on the topic of memory, Shaw, 1st floor, Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, USA 

Eastern Europe—a World War II battlefield and a zone of continuing military conflicts—is a region where war memory has gained particular relevance for understanding the collective past and present. This panel focuses on children’s and young adult (YA) books that contribute to different modes of remembering historical conflicts and shape their readers’ more general ways of reflecting on the past. These modes of remembering and reflection can foreground antagonistic narratives, underline universal values, or encourage a reflexive, multiperspective view of the past. In doing so, children’s and YA books react to their time’s politics of memory in a supportive or subversive way. This panel gathers four studies embracing a variety of genres that mediate war memory in socialist Yugoslav and contemporary Czech, Estonian, Polish (or Poland-themed), and Russian literature. The focus is on several fundamental modes of remembering war(s) in children’s and YA books: multiperspective memory (Svetlana Efimova), peace education (Katja Kobolt), restoring lost justice through documents (Maria Mayofis), competing or multidirectional memory of victimization (Mateusz Świetlicki). Within ASSEEES affiliated organisation “Childhood in Eastern Europe and Russia” (ChEER) Discussant: Anastasia Ulanowicz (University of Florida) Chair: Polina Popova (University of Illinois at Chicago).

https://aseees.org/convention/2025-convention/

https://cheeer.hcommons.org/category/aseees/

11) Saturday, 22.11. 2025, 12h

Participation in the round table “Yugoslav Aesthetics III: Book Discussion: Women and Partisan Art. Aesthetics and Practice of Resistance in Yugoslavia and Carinthia, by eds. Elena Messner, Cristina Beretta, Goran Lazičić, and Markus Gönitzer”, U Street, 1st floor, Hilton, 1919 Connecticut Ave., NW Washington, USA

This collection focuses on art and culture produced by the members of the partisan movement, as well as on the later works and narratives about the partisan anti-fascist movement in Yugoslavia and Carinthia during WWII. The special focus lies on the various artistic and cultural practices of female partisans (literature, paintings, music, theatre, newspapers, handcraft), which not only contributed to the military success of the partisan movement but decisively influenced women’s emancipation within the movement and, consequently, within Yugoslav society in general. Women and Partisan Art includes contributions by 30 established and emerging scholars from European and American universities, going back to the international conference held in 2023 at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. An important intervention in the field of Slavic and New Yugoslav Studies, the collection coincides with the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazism and Fascism in the Second World War. In this roundtable discussion, its contributors present an overview of the book and position it in the context of both current research in the academic field and on-going public debates on the subject. Chair: Kaitlyn Sorenson (SUNY Binghamton) Participants: Olja Alvir (University of Vienna) Tatjana Rosić Ilić (Singidunum University) Katja Kobolt (ZRC SAZU) Elena Messner (University of Vienna) Katarzyna Taczyńska (Polish Academy of Sciences)

https://aseees.org/convention/2025-convention/

https://www.newyugoslavstudies.org/aseees-2025-dc.html

12) Monday, 12.12. 2025, 15.30

Lecture “Data Management – A Researcher's Perspective” as part of the RETLAMI-SEE study visit, Institute for Cultural and Memory Studies, ZRC SAZU, Trg francoske revolucije 7, 2nd floor, 1000 Ljubljana

https://retlami-see.fpn.unibl.org/eng/second-study-visit-to-ljubljana-strengthens-research-methods-and-evaluation-practices-at-unibl/

13) Monday, 22.12. 2025

Trial lecture for appointment to the title “Women, cultural work, children, society: artistic activity for children through the lens of social reproduction,” Gosposka Hall, GIAM ZRC SAZU Geography Museum, Gosposka ulica 16, 1000 Ljubljana

The lecture shed light on artistic activities for children through the less common but important perspective of social reproduction. The lecture focused primarily on the period of socialist Yugoslavia and showed the intertwining of various levels and factors of social reproduction (upbringing, education, the establishment of new production and social conditions, relationships, and institutions) and artistic activities for children.

https://ps-zrc-sazu.org/novice/preizkusno-predavanje-dr-katje-kobolt-zenske-delo-kulture-otroci-druzba/

14) Tuesday, 21. 4. 2026, 13.30-15.30

Paper presentation “In Flux: Children’s Popular Culture and Memory (of War)”, panel (Mnemonic) Lives and Afterlives in/of Yugoslav Socialist Popular Culture at the international conference Decolonization Strategies and Memory Work in Popular Culture: MEMPOP Final Conference, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Kardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

In addition to the nearly half a billion children whose lives are directly affected by wars today (UNICEF), children are also confronted with the mediatization of wars – primarily through the entertainment industry aimed at young adults. In the past, particularly in post-war Europe and socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1991), children’s memory culture on war – including literature, comic books, music, films, theatre plays, and art addressed to children – formed a central pillar of memory politics and peace education. 

Today, at least in Slovenia, neither curricula nor textbooks include any children’s culture on war, especially marginalized are works on the Second World War and the National Liberation Struggle (1941–1945). The paper examined the previously popular genre of picture books on National Liberation Struggle as mnemonic objects. By tracing the structural, cultural political, aesthetic and material genealogy of selected picture books (Slikovnice o narodnooslobodilačkoj borbi, Lastavica, Veselin Masleša, Sarajevo) the paper raised conceptual, cultural and memory political questions about the changing nature of popular mnemonic objects in relation to social reproduction, and peace education – past and present.

15) Monday, 27.4.2026, 18.00-20.00

Invited lecture “Art of Care: Artistic Work for Children and Social Reproduction”,  Njegoš Endowment for Serbian Language and Culture, the East Central European Center, and the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, Marshall D. Shulman Seminar Room, 1219 International Affairs Building, 420 W 118th Street, 12th floor, New York, NY 10027, USA

After the devastation of the Second World War and the sustained struggle for freedom during the National Liberation Struggle in Yugoslavia (1941–45), the concept of childhood as a distinct stage of life assumed a decisive role in the reconstruction and development of postwar society, both domestically and internationally. The “century of the child” coincided with the “century of the book”: books, magazines, newspapers, and their illustrations accompanied children—who constituted nearly half of the population—as they grew up. Through words, sound, image, puppetry, and movement, creative practices for (and with) children opened the doors of the art world to those previously largely excluded, particularly women and children from the broader population.

This lecture reflects on the feminized practice of art for children through the lens of social reproduction. Focusing primarily on socialist Yugoslavia, it examines the interrelations among key dimensions of social reproduction—care, gender, class, upbringing, education, and the formation of new productive and reproductive conditions, institutions, and social relations—and explores how these processes intersected with artistic production.

https://harriman.columbia.edu/event/art-of-care-artistic-work-for-children-and-social-reproduction/?fbclid=IwY2xjawRm2z5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEenU3ncqPOSBvPhzR_Bz4j0lI4ChTPLRYqm7ZvDyk4seGxEMPEA0TVyV86yj4_aem_Y1ccmN1RStfuM8Rqjyw7Kg&brid=YWdncwEXhlNwwtZ_DbC3FYX09Kt-

16) Tuesday, 26.5.2026, 19.00–20.30 

Presentation of the anthology “Women and Partisan Art: Aesthetics and Practices of Resistance in Yugoslavia and Carinthia”, ZRC SAZU Atrium, Novi trg 2, Ljubljana, Slovenija 

Presentation of the edited volume and discussion with the editors of “Women and Partisan Art »Aesthetics and Practices of Resistance in Yugoslavia and Carinthia,” published on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazism and Fascism in Europe, to which researcher Katja Kobolt also contributed. The volume brings together contributions from more than thirty researchers from the former Yugoslavia and Western Europe on the resistance of female partisans in Yugoslavia and Austrian Carinthia as expressed through their artistic creation and cultural activities. The cultural practice of Yugoslav and Carinthian women partisans, as well as subsequent work about them, encompasses literature, visual arts, film, photography, comics, textiles, print media, theater, dance, and memorial architecture. The discussion featured Elena Messner, Cristina Beretta, Goran Lazičić, and Markus Gönitzer. The discussion was moderated by Ana Hofman and Katja Kobolt from the Institute for Cultural and Memory Studies at ZRC SAZU. The presentation of the anthology took place as part of the project Creating a Modernist Future: Illustrators and Representations of Childhood in Socialist Yugoslavia (Continued), which is made possible by the Recovery and Resilience Plan and funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU (MN-0010-618) and the program Historical Interpretations of the 20th Century (P6-0347).

https://ikss.zrc-sazu.si/en/dogodki/women-and-partisan-art

17) Saturday, 30.5.2026, 2026, 16:30–18:00 

Roundtable “Finding Home in the Field: A Roundtable on the State of Children’s Literature and the Academic World” organized by Ada Bieber (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Karen-Sands O’Connor (University of Sheffield) in conversation with Macarena García-González (Pompeu Fabra University), Mateusz Świetlicki (University of Wrocław), Anastasia Ulanowicz (University of Florida), Devika Mehra (independent researcher), and Katja Kobolt (ZRC SAZU) at the 20th international scientific conference Child & the Book, University of Crete, Gallos Campus, Amphitheater D7, Rethymno, Crete, Greece

Researchers from various academic institutions and different parts of the world—the U.S., Spain, Chile, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Slovenia—addressed pressing issues regarding structural, political, and social impacts in order to reflect on future perspectives in the field of children’s literature and culture studies and education. The goal of this initiative is to highlight and define current challenges within the academic world and to initiate a conversation that will serve as a foundation for future discussions and workshops. The roundtable consisted of three parts: i) Changes and Challenges in the Academic World; ii) Perspectives on Support in the Field of Children’s Literature; iii) Ideas and Initiatives.

https://ptde.child-book.admin.uoc.gr/

18) Sunday, May 30, 2026, 12:00–13.30

Presentation of the paper “Literary and Cultural Agency for and with Children in Times of Displacement” at the 20th International Scientific Conference Child & the Book, University of Crete, Gallos Campus, Amphitheater G17, Rethymno, Crete, Greece

The paper outlined the concrete literary and cultural agency of displaced writers and artists, as well as children, in the context of their migration to Slovenia and also Germany because of the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina (1992–1995). By referencing the conceptual apparatus of narrative agency from narrative hermeneutics, the paper follows the modes, conditions, and roles of literary and cultural agency for and with children. The concept of literary agency incorporates a polysystemic understanding of literature and considers different levels (writers, children, readership, and (infra)structures of the literary polysystem) and allows for observations of awareness, imagination, and dialogicality. Through literary agency, children with the experience of displacement created their own “in-betweenness” with other displaced children, as well as with other readers. Due to the (multi)linguistic, thematic-motivic, and formal characteristics of their (original, translation, pedagogical, editorial, and publishing) work, the writers with migration experience have addressed their native, diasporic, as well as host environments. However, the latter, especially in terms of their hegemonic institutional structures and readership, do not succeed in opening themselves up sufficiently to the dialogicality of the literary agency of writers with migration experience. Above all, this closes off the possibilities for children, the readership and other stakeholders in the literary polysystem for dialogue with those “in-betweens” that characterize our postmigrant reality. 

https://ptde.child-book.admin.uoc.gr/

19) Friday, 5.6.2026, 9:00–10:45 

Presentation of a paperat the international academic conference “Narratives of Womanhood in the Modernisms of Central and Eastern Europe (1870–1970),” Centre d’Études slaves, 9 rue Michelet, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France 

The paper examined how women’s fiction writing for children opened a space for thinking about and politicising social reproduction problem, motherhood, and childhood in socialist Yugoslavia. The paper moves theoretical reflection on socialist motherhood from descriptions of motherhood as institution as something which pre-defines and closes mother’ subjectivities to the interrogation of the constitution of experiences and the formation of subjectivities, revealing hereby the work of fiction as the wedge for the political.

A multimodal reading of the stories by Ela Peroci from 1960, which were illustrated by Ančka Gošnik Godec in various publications, follows spatial-temporal transitions from the home of an extended family into Ljubljana’s urban topography and onward into a fantasy space. It is precisely this transition that enables a shared, yet not entirely identical, perspective between mother and child and opens up a space for negotiation regarding care, fatigue, desires, and creativity. 

The paper uses Lefebvrien tri-partite synchronic registers of spatial practices (perceived space, representations of space and representational space or lived space) and the concept of the third space by Homi Bhabha to reflect on how fiction not only depicts the conflict of social reproduction but also creates spatial, temporal and relational possibility where motherhood and childhood can be reimagined as a relational practice and as a possibility for political speech.

https://cefres.cz/en/events/colliding-women/

20) Friday, 19.6.2026, 16.00-21.00

Presentation of a paper at the conference “Lubricating the System: Infrastructure Strategies for Precarious Archives”, Lectures and discussions as part of the exhibition “Archival Chain Reactions: Between and Beyond Archivo Pinto mi Raya, re.act.feminism, City of Women,” Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM), Maistrova 3, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Dunja Kukovec and Katja Kobolt, longtime collaborators with the City of Women Association—which they also led between 2007 and 2009—presented the curatorial approaches of the post-Yugoslav feminist collective Red Mined, which were based on reshaping exhibition proand radical inclusivity, resulting in the multi-year project *Bring In Take Out Living Archive* (2011–2015) as well as the 54th October Salon in Belgrade—*No one belongs here more than you* (2013). The Living Archive is a contemporary art exhibition in the form of an open archive that, through methodology, transforms object-based, production-based, and interpersonal relationships. This approach also shaped the artists’ subsequent collaborations, such as the artistic research platform n*a*i*l*s hacks facts fictions (City of Women, 2020), as well as the Collection of Illustrations by Yugoslav Women Artists (1945–1991).

https://www.mestozensk.org/sites/default/files/inline-files/A5-booklet-slo-fin.pdf