DEJAN KALUDJEROVIĆ
I Don’t Know That Word… Yet!

Art Gallery – Cultural Centre of Belgrade
Knez Mihailova 6
Opening: December 9, 2022, at 19:00
9. 12. 2022 – 14. 1. 2023

In the past decade, Dejan Kaludjerović has been working on the research project Conversations, through collaboration with children aged seven to ten from eight world cities. The project has had several iterations and involved different media (video/audio installation, object, photography, site-specific).

The latest edition of Conversation is based on the opera Conversations: I Don’t Know That Word… Yet, which was performed in 2021 in Graz, as part of the prestigious Steirischer Herbst Festival, in a complex collaboration with composer Marija Balubdžić, playwright Tanja Šljivar, director Bojan Đorđev and performers Zoja Borovčanin, Lisa Cristelli, Christoph Gerhardus and Sebastian Hiti.

This time, at the Fine Arts Gallery of the Cultural Centre of Belgrade, the artist presents a new work – I Don’t Know That Word… Yet (2022), a five-channel ambient audio-video installation, constructing a dialogue among sound, digitally generated images and the physical presence of the viewer. The juxtaposition of two planes – the changing background made of frames that the artist shot especially for this work and a series of four screens with individual projections of the performers – creates an immersive environment.

The setting in the gallery space can also be seen as a backdrop within which – with the help of children’s voices embodied in the characters of performers and certain objects such as props – a unique ephemeral order is built anew through viewers’ interaction with the found scene.

Dejan Kaludjerović
I Don’t Know That Word… Yet (2022)
five-channel-HD video, five-channel sound installation, wood, acrylic paint, 53 min 03 sec

*the video is based on the opera performance Conversations: I Don’t Know That Word… Yet (2021) that was done in collaboration with Marija Balubdžić, Bojan Đorđev and Tanja Šljivar and commissioned by steirischer herbst 21

Performers: Zoja Borovčanin, Lisa Cristelli, Christoph Gerhardus, Sebastian Hiti
Conception and visual creation: Dejan Kaludjerović
Directed by Dejan Kaludjerović
Editing: Dejan Kaludjerović, Flavia Mudesto
Music: Marija Balubdžić
Libretto: Tanja Šjivar, based on Dejan Kaludjerović’s scripts originating from his interviews with children from Baku, Bel- grade, Graz, Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Tehran, Vienna, and Vladikavkaz, used in the work Conversations he has been producing since 2013
Costumes: Vesna Kracanović
Sound: audiotope studios (Andreas Kapfer and Stefan Könighofer)

With the kind support:
The Austrian Cultural Forum Belgrade, the Austrian Federal Chancellery and the City of Vienna
City of Belgrade, Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia