Darja Bajagic
AGE: 25.
ORIGINALLY FROM: Titograd, Yugoslavia.
CURRENTLY LIVE: Long Island City, Queens.
GALLERY: Room East, New york.
DESCRIPTION OF WORK: Softgore.
THE MOST CHALLENGING OR SUCCESSFUL WORK YOU’VE MADE: Midway through graduate school, I felt annoyed and frustrated. I felt a kind of block and wanted to leave everything behind. So as a type of fix, I hid away in the tower part of the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale, called “the stacks,” and spent hours per day for a little over four weeks crossing out all appearances of the letter a in a library book and tallying the amount per page. It was later titled The A Project and included in the Serpentine Galleries 89plus Marathon, in October 2013.
THE MOST SURPRISING REACTION TO YOUR WORK YOU’VE RECEIVED: One that stands out in my memory occurred at the end of my third semester in graduate school. I screened a video I’d made, Sample XXX Puzzle—Pin-up LandTM Cum-centration. I remember expecting laughs, even just a few awkward ones, but no one was laughing at all, not even breaking a smile. I remember feeling like I could only see angry faces in the crowd.
DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A LONE ARTISTS OR FEEL THAT YOU’RE WORKING IN A COMMUNITY OF PEERS? I like to be and work alone.
DOES THE CURRENT ART WORLD FOSTER OR DEVOUR TALENT? I am not sure. To be safe, learn how to swim, or if it’s too late for you, get some floaties.
FAVORITE LIVING ARTIST: Mikko Aspa and Thomas Hirschhorn.
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU REACH AN IMPASSE WITH A WORK? Neglect it, put it off for as long as I can.
DO YOU LIKE HOW YOUR WORK APPEARS ON THE INTERNET? Sometimes. At times, I get put off by the way in which my work is photographed or, more often, described. One of my bigger pet peeves is when I get described as a “woman artist.”
CURRENTLY WORKING ON: I am finalizing a series of teardrop-shaped and puddle-shaped sculptures for my inclusion in Co-Workers-Network as Artist at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris [opened October 2015]. The teardrops utilize mostly self-portraits taken by missing girls, never found, and the puddles are composites of various images relating to and of missing girls, found murdered.
