Sanja Latinovic
On Time, 2021

“The artist shoulders a yoke weighted with water to offer nourishment to young oaks on three successive evenings, the time of day when water is most easily absorbed, ensuring the basic metabolic processes necessary for their survival. Nevertheless, the trees are in poor condition.

The plight of the trees can be seen as literal or associative. As living entities, they are locked into an interdependent cycle with their environment which necessitates a struggle for equilibrium. Taken as an approximation they can represent individuals in a wider society who require nourishment and support from their own cyclic environment. More broadly, the situation raises questions regarding our own attitudes, actions, and place in a world facing major existential changes.

How honest are our intentions? Is the watering of dying trees an act merely to assuage our own guilt, an ironic attempt at palliative care, or a consequence of the desperation and anxiety created by a lifetime of neglect? Or is it possible that our actions bud and bloom from love, compassion, mutual wellbeing and hope? Perhaps there is a beam of light on the path ahead.

Latinović’s practice is stark and direct. There is no relentless tide of clichés (turning point, elitist hierarchy of the art world, hotbed of radicalism, alienated modern lives) nor walking through labyrinths of meta and micronarratives. Her work seeks to trigger ruminations about duty, needs and negligence. By performing she reflects on the most potent moment to intervene, acknowledge and esteem what is around and within us.”

Jelena Veljković Wilson