The museum: artist Novka Ćosović explores trauma with swimming pool installation
The Museum by Novka Ćosović (Image: Giordano Ciampini)
The Museum by Novka Ćosović (Image: Giordano Ciampini)
The Museum by Novka Ćosović (Image: Giordano Ciampini)
Ćosović’s architectural graphic standard for a “perverted” swimming pool
19 October 2016
Text
Elise Morton
Canadian-born Serbian artist Novka Ćosović‘s large-scale art installation The Museum centres on the everyday settings of trauma. The installation imbues a familiar and innocuous environment with horror, inviting visitors to step inside a representation of a swimming pool that was used as a morgue during the Yugoslav wars.
Visitors to The Museum can sit inside the “pool” and watch clips depicting the horrors of war.
“At first, in this subtle museum, people would unknowingly pass through the space, unlikely to make a connection between the patterns that line the floor and walls and the acts of violence they are associated with,” says the artist. “Over time, however, the installation begins to connect to the many news clips, photos and video loops of war on the projection screen.”
Alongside the installation, presented at Nuit Blanche earlier this month in Toronto, Ćosović provides a series of instructional graphics, which outline how best to use everyday spaces for the functions of war, evoking a sensation of discomfort in the viewer.
Source: Designboom
