I am Jugoslovenka! Feminist performance politics during and after Yugoslav Socialism
2022
Jasmina Tumbas: I am Jugoslovenka! Feminist performance politics during and after Yugoslav Socialism, Manchester University Press, 2022
"I am Jugoslovenka" argues that queer-feminist artistic and political resistance were paradoxically enabled by socialist Yugoslavia's unique history of patriarchy and women's emancipation. Spanning performance and conceptual art, video works, film and pop music, lesbian activism and press photos of female snipers in the Yugoslav wars, the book analyses feminist resistance in a range of performative actions that manifest the radical embodiment of Yugoslavia's anti-fascist, transnational and feminist legacies. It covers celebrated and lesser-known artists from the 1970s to today, including Marina Abramovic, Jasmina Cibic, Sanja Iveković, Vlasta Delimar, Tanja Ostojić, Selma Selman and Helena Janecić, along with music legends Lepa Brena and Esma Redžepova. "I am Jugoslovenka" tells a unique story of women's resistance through the intersection of feminism, socialism and nationalism in East European visual culture.