Tourists Welcome

iLiana Fokianaki’s essay situates the Cibict’s work within a broader reflection on the shifting conditions of state power and its cultural manifestations.

The essay traces how the artist’s practice critically examines the evolution of political authority, from early 20th-century models of social welfare and soft power to contemporary forms of neoliberal governance. Drawing on histories of architecture, culture, and political spectacle, Fokianaki highlights how art and cultural production have long functioned as instruments of persuasion, governance, and ideological framing.

Central to the analysis is Cibic’s film The Gift, which positions culture itself as a political tool—operating simultaneously as a vehicle of power and a site of critique. Through staged narratives, symbolic architectures, and archetypal figures, the work reveals how cultural forms contribute to the construction of national identity, diplomacy, and influence. These elements combine to form what Fokianaki describes as a “visual genealogy” of power, connecting historical strategies of representation to their contemporary expressions.

Fokianaki further interprets Cibic’s work as a practice that exposes the mechanisms through which power operates while maintaining a critical distance from them. In this reading, the artist’s engagement with culture becomes a means of examining how systems of representation are produced, circulated, and sustained.

The essay positions Cibic’s work as a critical lens through which to reconsider the role of culture in shaping political narratives, opening space for reflection on how these structures might be understood—and potentially reimagined.

In this interview with Chris Clarke, Cibic discusses her research-driven practice as an ongoing investigation into the relationship between culture and political power.

She reflects on her use of film as a narrative extension of installation, developing allegorical characters as archetypes that condense historical and political positions. These figures allow her to work with archival material while exposing the persistent similarities in political rhetoric across different regimes and time periods.

Cibic emphasises her interest in the construction and manipulation of archives, focusing on what is omitted, censored, or translated, and using these gaps to reimagine history through a feminist and critical lens. Across works such as The Gift, the NADA trilogy, and State of Illusion, she examines how art and architecture are instrumentalised, often revealing that the processes of selection, mediation, and censorship are more significant than the final cultural object itself.

Architecture plays a central role in her films, functioning not merely as a setting but as an active agent that choreographs action and embodies ideological histories. These sites—often former centres of political power—are approached as spaces of reenactment, where past and present narratives intersect.

Cibic also addresses the shifting role of culture today, arguing that traditional notions of soft power have been transformed under neoliberal conditions, where cultural production is increasingly tied to economic value and institutional survival. Rather than offering fixed conclusions, she positions her work as a platform for critical reflection, using humour, allegory, and repetition to expose the cyclical and often absurd dynamics of power, representation, and ideology.

The interview between Jasmina Cibic and curator Simona Vidmar reflects on Cibic’s Airport Projects, a long-term body of work situated in airports as “non-places” defined by anonymity, transit, and suspended identity. The conversation explores how these spaces allow the artist to stage interventions that question the construction of experience, authority, and spectatorship, shifting the viewer from a traditional museum audience into roles such as tourist, passer-by, or participant. Cibic discusses her use of performative actions, delegated authorship, and fictionalised narratives to fabricate new experiences rather than simply represent reality, while also addressing how artworks transform when translated from site-specific contexts into documentation or exhibition formats.

The interview was published as part of Jasmina Cibic’s broader Airport Projects research and accompanying publication, which brings together her investigations into airports as ideological and experiential frameworks, examining how globalised spaces shape perception, identity, and the politics of viewing.

This essay examines Jasmina Cibic’s early artistic practice through a series of performative interventions and staged environments realised in spaces such as airports, tourist sites, zoos, and exhibition architectures. Focusing on projects including Everybody for Safari (2005), Dictionary of Imaginary Places, Tourists Welcome, and Ideologies of Display, the text traces the emergence of Cibic’s long-standing interest in spectatorship, tourism, systems of display, and the ideological choreography of public space.

The essay positions Cibic’s early works as investigations into how environments associated with travel, consumption, and leisure construct desire and collective imagination. By inserting fictional destinations into airport information systems, staging performances within airport terminals, or transforming exhibition spaces into scenographic constructions, Cibic exposes the mechanisms through which spectacle, aspiration, and authority are aestheticised and normalised.

Particular emphasis is placed on the artist’s use of highly controlled visual languages borrowed from advertising, tourism, and late capitalism. Rather than critiquing these systems from a distance, Cibic reenacts and subtly destabilises them through fictional interventions, performative gestures, and staged “souvenirs” of experience.

The essay identifies these early projects as foundational to Cibic’s later practice, establishing methodologies that continue throughout her work: the use of architecture, scenography, performance, and historical reference to interrogate how political, cultural, and ideological identities are constructed and performed.