On Saturday, November 16th, at 7 p.m., the solo exhibition Preparations for Paradise by artist Dejana Vučićević opened at the Balkan Cinema gallery. The exhibition runs until December 2, 2024.
Photo: Milan Tvrdišić
Dejana Vučićević graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, and her artistic practice stands out through original projects in costume design and design. She has behind her fashion collections and costumes for feature and short films, as well as projects for theater and TV commercials, while her work also includes styling for fashion and art editorials.
In addition, Vučićević is active in the field of multimedia arts, where she realizes conceptual projects presented at solo and group exhibitions. Her works are part of the collections of the Museum of the City of Belgrade, the Museum of Applied Art, the October Salon and the Telenor Collection of Contemporary Art, as well as many private collections.
Dejana Vučićević’s preparations for Paradise
The photography series, in addition to serving as a form of documentation for an ambitious and bold Gesamtkunstwerk, offers insight into the mature, final phase of the artist’s long-standing exploration of universal, feminine, and ultimately human themes through an intimate lens. It is an odyssey through life—layered and complex, joyful and full of sorrow—imbued with the history of a place, the city of Belgrade, as the stage for countless unseen battles. The genius loci holds an array of personal histories that breathe life into buildings and streets, their souls carried into eternity through the processes of decay and destruction, a fate perhaps no individual owns but that profoundly concerns us all. A city without people is nothing more than an empty set; people without an address are mere wanderers lost in the vastness of the cosmos. What is birth without death, kindness without hope, a woman without a man, a journey without a destination? Dejana Vučićević masterfully raises all these and many other metaphysical and eschatological questions in Preparations for Paradise, succeeding in offering answers without imposing conclusions. Transforming personal experience into something universal is one of art’s most ambitious demands, and this series meets that challenge.
The photographs, taken in the artist’s personal space, in abandoned Belgrade villas in Senjak, as well as in the Krsmanović Brothers Steam Bath complex—formed between 1901 and the 1920s around remnants of the former 18th-century “Little Hammam”—evoke the spirit of bygone times, destruction, decadence, and damnatio memoriae. In these spaces, once filled with life, silence and decay now bear the mark of passing time, an effect echoed by the costumes the artist has designed. Every detail holds the symbolism of preparation for the final journey. The women in the photographs hold items that, according to the artist’s concept, they will need in the next world. These objects, carefully collected during the artist’s travels, form a kaleidoscope of details from different eras—from the 19th century to the present day. Their role in the series is to evoke ancient customs that transformed everyday items into companions for the afterlife.
The search for places that function as topoi, elevated beyond mere scenographic settings, bears witness to the persistence and preservation of what greater forces have sacrificed to Chronos. Finding the right space, obtaining permits, choosing the perfect day, relying on natural light, engaging, dressing, and preparing the model—all these preparatory steps are part of a complex ritual whose ultimate aim is the sublimation of life’s chaotic impulses and creative energy into a single, perfect, frozen frame.
Throughout art history, preparations for paradise, or the journey to the afterlife, have been represented as a crucial part of dying—a ritual that unites the material with the metaphysical. In ancient Egypt, death signified the transition to eternal life, and burying the deceased involved meticulously preparing the body and soul for the journey to the celestial fields. The Egyptians equipped their tombs with objects deemed essential for the afterlife, believing these items would help carry a part of their transient, earthly identity into eternity. A similar theme appears in Preparations for Paradise, where authentic objects from various eras, carefully selected and rich in symbolism, serve as a bridge between worlds—between the everyday and the eternal, the transient and the lasting.
Whether it’s a basket full of eggs, a satin shoe, a tea set, a ladle, or a decorative cushion, the message remains the same and concerns a woman and her space—physical, bodily, social, historical, contemporary. It speaks to those who search and those who, at the end of every happy tale, are either found or, from a more pessimistic perspective, lost along the way. Interior spaces traditionally belong to women; they are the builders of the home and keepers of the hearth. Dejana Vučićević does not dispute this view, but her work undeniably expands it. It took traversing the world over to place these beautiful young women in eight photographs. It took the will and imagination of one woman to gather and bring the insignia of unnamed empresses from every corner of the world in suitcases and bags. This adds yet another layer to the narrative structure of Preparations for Paradise—a quiet, unassuming labor, overlooked only by those who choose blindness as both shield and defense.
The iconography characteristic of Dejana Vučićević’s work reaches full maturity here. The sanctification of the everyday is achieved through a magical intertwining of live models and a striking, profane mise-en-scène. The beauty and youth of the models are brought to the forefront, but even while hunting for details, the metaphorical forest around each tree remains clear. While these women live and breathe, frozen in an eternal now, the world they inhabit stands on the brink of ruin. This contrast is both startling and expected. The women in these photographs are not models serving a capitalist marketing practice aimed at selling an ideal of a perfect life. They are allegorical figures, used in the manner of Christian iconography. Each of them represents each of us. Each of them a signifier of the artist herself. Hence, the masks on their faces, which leave us wondering if they conceal more than they reveal.
Vučićević has demonstrated many times her mastery over dualities, but in Preparations for Paradise, she succeeds in reconciling differences to reveal how they coexist on every plane of existence, and seemingly, even beyond it. Millions of distinct voices ultimately sing the final song. The wonder of living is unique to each person, but death is the ultimate equalizer.
What awaits us beyond the horizon? The final destination is the promised land for those whose hearts this world has torn from their chests. It is an inevitability for believers and a fear for the doubtful. Paradise is both a warning and a promise—a motivation to spend our days on earth honorably and rightly, or to be ready to face the consequences. The only thing we can take with us is hope. Hope that a second chance awaits us there. But a chance for what? To spend eternity with those we loved, to be part of a great gathering of souls at a table where nothing is lacking. To bathe in a warm sea over which the sun never sets. To receive the opportunity and time to finally love ourselves and atone for our sins.
For such a journey, we don’t need ships or armies to clear a path into the unknown. What we need are those small things that make us feel alive, that unite spirit with body, that make us—us. The artist offers her own selection. It’s up to us to make our own lists.
The motif of the needle and thread appears in several photographs and is essential to the entire series. Beyond the obvious allusion to the Moirai of Greek mythology or the Suđaje, or Rođenice from Slavic mythology—ambivalent divine beings who weave a person’s fate at birth—the symbolism of these items in Dejana Vučićević’s work is deeper and more personal. The needle and thread have always been associated with the process of creation, as well as with uniting various parts into a whole. In art, the needle symbolizes precision, care, and skill, while the thread represents continuity and connection. In costume design, the needle and thread are indispensable tools, and their symbolic role extends to merging past and present.
Through the costumes she has created, Vučićević uses the metaphor of needle and thread to join different eras and cultures into a cohesive artistic whole. Her costumes are composed of elements from diverse periods and traditions, with the needle and thread symbolizing the act of creation and transformation—a process in which material becomes art, and the past is brought to life in the present.
One of the key aspects of the symbolism of the needle and thread is their association with healing, repair, and renewal. In everyday use, thread is used for sewing and mending damaged materials, which symbolically represents the healing of wounds, both emotional and physical. In the context of Preparations for Paradise, this may represent the idea of preparing for the afterlife—through the “repair” of the soul, the preparation of the body and mind for the final journey. Just as a needle connects pieces of fabric to create a whole, these costumes symbolize preparation for a new, different form of existence, where all parts of personal history and experience are finally brought together in harmony.
Whether we’re waiting by a silent phone for a call, cooking lunch for an unknown number of hungry people, serving tea every day at five, or waiting, ready for a taxi to stop just so we can tell the driver to go wherever he wishes—each of us, and ultimately all of us, deep down, are prepared. We have spent our lives gathering wishes and making lists. We know who we want to meet on the other side, in whose home we wish to wake up. Stepping into the abyss is nothing more than becoming one with ourselves. “I found you, and in you—paradise,” says the reflection in the mirror.
– Milica Grujić, Art Historian
Belgrade, October 2024
Photo: Bojana Janjić
