Zora Stančič (SI)

Headscarf

“Wearing a headscarf used to make a woman become “invisible”, today it is the other way around. Wearing a headscarf carries different cultural-religious-political connotations, and is perceived differently in different contexts. The scarf can just be an accessory, but it can also be a statement, an identity, or the object of ideological discussions. It provokes fear in some people; they understand it as an emblem of women’s submission. On the other hand, it is a symbol of freedom, pride, civilized behavior and modesty to many women. The headscarves I painted with various motifs and shapes were found when I was putting away things from my mother’s personal heritage. Apart from the memories of those, who are leaving, it is also painful to be confronted with the things that people closest to us have left behind. There were a lot of textiles, beddings, clothes, and especially headscarves lying in her drawers, waiting for better times, which never arrived. The starting point for the printed images were photos created with my digital camera, or iPhone, which are really a form of diary entries, a record of events, but mostly people. I processed the photographs graphically with the help of the computer, almost beyond recognition, but still so that one can sense the basic human figure or face in them. The printed headscarves are like imprints, the traces of all the people that are leaving: my mother, friends, refugees…”

Zora Stančič (1956) was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Having graduated from the Ljubljana Secondary School of Design, she began her studies of graphic art at the Sarajevo Academy of Fine Arts, where she graduated with a degree in lithography (1984). Later she completed her postgraduate studies in graphic art at the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts (1990). Since 2012, she has been holding the position of Senior Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions home and abroad, and received several international awards, among them the Grand Prix at the 4^th Biennial of Slovene Graphic Arts in Otočec (1996), and the San Zanobi Award at the 23^rd International Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana. In 1999 she received an honorary mention at the 5^th International Biennial of Drawing and Graphic Arts in Gyor, Hungary, and an honorary diploma at the 12^th Tallinn Print Triennial in Estonia. This year she received the Župančič Award, the highest recognition of the city of Ljubljana, for outstanding achievement in arts and culture.

www.zorastancic.com