In Rhythmic Affinity

In Rhythmic Affinity is a performative installation conceived as a meeting point between works from the Art Collection of the Non-Aligned Countries and Jasmina Cibic’s ongoing investigations into the political gifting of culture, the choreography of diplomacy, and the construction of ideological consensus through aesthetic forms. Bringing together a selection of works that examine the deployment of cultural signifiers by political powers during moments of social and geopolitical crisis throughout the twentieth century, the installation interweaves historical fragments with speculative possibilities for renewed forms of solidarity.

For this presentation, Cibic developed a new scenography within which artworks and objets d’art donated by governments, institutions, and embassies of member states of the Non-Aligned Movement to former Yugoslavia are placed in dialogue with her own works. The exhibition environment stages these objects not as static historical artefacts, but as active witnesses to the ambitions, contradictions, and symbolic economies embedded within international cultural exchange.

The project is presented in collaboration with the Art Collection of the Non-Aligned Movement Lab, a research initiative of the Contemporary Art Centre of Montenegro dedicated to the study, preservation, and activation of the collection through contemporary artistic and archival practices. The collection itself bears witness to a significant historical moment in which culture functioned as a diplomatic language between newly emerging political alliances and postcolonial futures.

The performative dimension of In Rhythmic Affinity unfolds as a composition for three female voices staged within the installation environment. Developed in collaboration with composer and vocalist Barbara Kinga Majewska, the work weaves together fragments of the “Most Favoured Nation” clause—the founding principle of the postwar multilateral trading system conceived to replace power-driven economic relations with a shared framework of exchange—with passages drawn from a musical score donated to the League of Nations. Discovered by Cibic during her research at the United Nations Library & Archives Geneva, the archival composition becomes reanimated through the female voice as a meditation on diplomacy, consensus, and the fragile idealism embedded within international cultural exchange.

Positioned between political anthem, diplomatic ritual, and elegy, the performance reflects on the instrumentalisation of culture as a vehicle of soft power while foregrounding the historical absence of women from the political authorship of international relations. Following the live activation, the voices remain in the space as a disembodied sound installation, transforming the exhibition into an acoustic environment haunted by unrealised promises of solidarity and collective futures.

The installation features the following works from the Art Collection of the Non-Aligned Countries:

Harfa Saung-Gauk (gifted by the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs, VIII Administration Burma), Shuresh Sharma: Untitled II (gifted by the National Gallery of New Delhi, India), Gurcharan Singh: Painting No 5 (gifted by the National Gallery of New Delhi, India), Gender folk xylophone (gifted by the Embassy of Indonesia), Mustafa El Razzaz: Triptich (gifted by the Government of Egypt), Saleh Reda: Composition (gifted by the Government of Egypt); Ted Carrasco: Torso (gifted by Ambajada De La Republica Socialista Federativa De Yugoslavia Casilla 1717 La Paz Bolivia).