The Škarts project “Contemporary Cook” was initiated through embroidery work of a number of women belonging to the Association of Single Mothers ‘ŽENA’  from Zemun.  At first, Škart supplied them with the prepared drawings and texts that women were then expected to embroider on linen. However, at one point, members of Škart asked women from Association to come up with messages and drawings for embroidering for themselves. Among the motives that they then embroidered, one was the respective “Cook”: “If i dare say life is bad, i may pay for it with my own life, that is why i’m embroidering lovely flowers and nobody will harm me in this land of ours”.  My work is directly inspired by the Kuvarica in question. 

 

My work was created upon finishing Faculty of Fine Arts. Being an artist in Serbia and making a living of art is almost impossible. And while art market practically does not exist, art institutions function in a very unusual way without much rules or regulations. Young artists are bound to manage in their own way after graduating. This usually means that they struggle and practice art for a short while but give up eventually and change their profession. From my point of view it all seemed as some sort of silly (video) game where system eats away the young artists. Packman is probably the first video game I have ever played and as such it represents synonym for video games for me. When I graduated I still had a strong urge to practice art. I spent a lot of time embroidering and I often thought of the work “Cook” by art group Škart . I decided to create a sort of reply to the „Cook“ that already existed but the kind that would be made from my point of view.