To Be Doggo

Maja Simišic received a grant to develop To Be Doggo: a visual project in which the artist transforms from human to dog so that she can be adopted by a Dutch family and receive a European Union passport. The project is a conceptual video work that will be shown as a short semi-documentary film.

Maja is a multimedia artist who focuses on everyday struggles and finds ways to turn them upside down. The model she uses in her work to overturn existing gender and class struggles is based on an analysis of the expectations imposed on us by modern social structures and historical narratives. As a woman from the Balkans, living and working in the Western world, her artistic practice is deeply influenced by, on the one hand, the perception of the Eastern European in Western society and, on the other hand, the way people are raised in the Balkans, their fundamental beliefs and the role of women in both these contexts. Maja carries heavy subjects with lightness and humor peculiar to her character. Extremely individualistic in nature, rooted in identity and identity politics, Maja asks her audience to question what is in front of them.