It was realized in the best tradition of the video-performance Naked Life 1 (2004 – which was well received at the October Salon in Belgrade), Naked Life 2 (2011 – performed at the Venice Biennale, the Roma Pavilion in the UNESCO building) and Naked Life 4, (2015 in Gothenburg, referring to 500 years of systematic discrimination against Roma in Sweden). All these works are based on the artist’s research, on the reports of the European Roma Rights Centre and many other international Roma organizations, and they deal with different types of discrimination against Roma, racism and violation of their human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights.

The interdisciplinary work Naked Life explores individual cases and history of discrimination against the largest minority groups in Europe, Roma and Sinti. The project gets to grips with “naked life”, social and political exclusion, deportation, racism, biopolitics, xenophobia and different cultural identities. In her most recent video performance, the artist reads aloud portions of interviews about the tragic destinies of young Roma women and men who were deported from Germany and France to Serbia and Kosovo, although some of them had previously lived in Western Europe to the age of twenty-two… These deportations are the result of declaring the Balkan countries “safe countries”, although they are actually not safe for the Roma, especially when it comes to Kosovo, where the conditions for their employment, education and progress are almost zero. In this performance, Ostojić also addresses the most relevant recent cases of racism against Roma in the UK.

In the pauses of reading, she slowly takes off her many dresses and blouses and eventually remains completely naked and symbolically vulnerable as “naked life”. The intensity of the performance is dramatically enhanced every time the artist bangs the table with the heel, in the courtroom where many important acts have been debated for centuries. Through this process, she emphasizes the gravity of the situation and expresses her protest over it.

She writes the authentic words of some of the interviewed artists on sheets of paper and serves them to the audience. Ostojić wonders how it is possible at all in modern Europe that certain ethnic groups are systematically excluded and deprived of political, social and human rights.

“It’s time to put an end to the last allowed racism – racism against the Roma!” Mar. 25, 2016

Production: Gray School of Art / Robert Gordon University, University of Aberdeen, Scottish Cultural Art Network, Society of Advocates Hall
Performer: Tanja Ostojić
Copyright: Tanja Ostojić 

© Cultural Centre of Belgrade, October Salon Collection and the artist
Purchase Contract: III-5-407/12.12.2016.
Inventory No. 1461
Photo: still from the video work

Selected Bibliography:
Video interview with Tanja Ostojić, with video and photo review of some of her most important works, Directors Cut, Aberdeen, Scotland, May 2015:
http://cdnapi.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/openGraph/wid/1_hdyspejd
Interview with Tanja Ostojić, Slought Foundation, New York:
https://slought.org/blog_posts/marriage_and_other_migrations
Misplaced Women? http://misplacedwomen.wordpress.com