Seychelles Biennale of Contemporary Art 2022 – July 31 to August 28 |02 August 2022

Leonora Vekic with her textile art installation

Meet textile art installations specialist Serbian Leonora Vekic

The month-long Seychelles Biennale of Contemporary Art 2022 opened on Sunday afternoon and as has already been announced, there will be art exhibitions throughout the month at different venues by the 44 artists taking part including the 18 Seychellois artists.

During the course of the month Seychelles NATION will bring you a series of interviews it has conducted with some of the artists including the winners of the four different prizes to find out more about them and their work and what makes these talented individuals tick.

In the first interview, our journalist caught up with textile art installations specialist Serbian Leonora Vekic at the Seychelles Chinese Cultural Centre who gave us some insight into her inspiration behind her textile art installations in which she says the message she has tried to convey is “the fragility of beauty”.

Seychelles NATION: Tell us a little bit about yourself and how your journey as an artist began.

Leonora: I am a professor at the Faculty of Applied Arts which is part of the University of Art in Belgrade. Actually I have been attached to this institution for a long time because I was a student and after that I became a professor at the same institution. The whole time I was exhibiting in fashion and also a lot in the area of textile art, specializing in textile art installations.

Seychelles NATION:Can you tell us about your art piece being exhibited in the biennale?

Leonora Vekic: The idea behind both of my installation pieces is the same because it speaks about the capability of textile elements to express my thinking about art. The very important part for me is the space, the transparency of the material or actually the dialogue between the material and the space where I am putting those installations.

I am exhibiting one piece of my work on Praslin and it is made up of some kind of textile with patterns which is a very transparent material. The work is being displayed in the open area at the entrance to the Lemuria Resort. It is a moving sculpture and it mostly speaks about the power of love. I think that is the point between nature and between the power of love especially from the view of artists.

Seychelles NATION: What was your inspiration behind your installation?

Leonora Vekic: My inspiration is from the viewpoints. One of the points is superposition. That’s the term in physics that speaks about the possibility that one piece can be in two places at the same moment. I am trying to transpose that kind of feeling. The other point of view is the female point of view. I am using knitting, which was very common for females to do for a very long time. It was a drastic technique that was sometimes not valued. So this is also about the women as an element of earth and someone who is tying the connections between us and others.

Seychelles NATION:What are your thoughts about the installations of the other artists in the Biennale?

Leonora Vekic: We are alike to be a part of the contemporary arts. So I see the same ideas are also here and they are very important to be seen from our points of view but maybe the techniques are a little bit different.

Seychelles NATION: As an artist, what are your most important values?

Leonora Vekic: For me, in my work, two things are very important. I still keep the beauty in my work. My work is some kind of monument for beauty. I still think that it is very important to carry the beauty – to pay attention to the beauty. Beauty is a fragile thing. Beauty needs special attention. Sometimes I think that most of my works are about women. Everything I think a woman is, is in my work on Praslin. It is the earth. It is the beauty. It is the strength. It is the vulnerability. Everything is in that piece of work. The other part is dialogue with the viewer. It is important for me that they feel as much as they can through my work.

Sylia Ah-Time