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Exhibition Andreja Kulunčić: To Make the World a Better Place
Detailed exhibition description
Museum of Contemporary Art, May 15 – October 12, 2025
Curator: Martina Munivrana
Visual artist Andreja Kulunčić, whose work represents one of the most significant bodies of socially engaged artistic practice in Croatia, is presenting for the first time a solo, comprehensive exhibition that offers an overview of her creative output from the 1990s to the present. The foundation of the exhibition is the exploration and analysis of the potential of contemporary socially engaged visual arts to transform existing social conditions — embodying the artist’s assertion that socially engaged art, through its actions, makes the world a better place. In her artistic practice, Andreja Kulunčić draws attention to social injustices — identifying them, investigating their causes, and questioning possible forms of resistance. Her art is not merely a reflection of reality but a tool for change, encouraging audiences toward critical thinking and active participation.
By presenting a thirty-year span of the artist’s oeuvre, the exhibition spotlights themes such as feminism, migration, labor rights, gender equality, integration, and cultural diversity. Educational workshops and discussion events linked to the exhibition invite visitors to actively participate, fostering critical reflection and engagement with key societal issues. Intercultural collaboration is another significant aspect of the exhibition program. Activities that connect migrant workers with local residents promote inclusivity and openness, positioning the Museum as accessible to all social groups.
About the Exhibition
The exhibition design, co-created by Andreja Kulunčić and curator Martina Munivrana (MSU, Zagreb), is structured into five thematic sections: Feminism, Trauma, Migration, Self‑Organization, and a Structural Analysis of the Artist’s Methodology. Within these sections, newly developed works — based on curatorial research into the artist’s practice — are exhibited, reconsidering the function and form of a solo (retrospective) museum exhibition as a social agent—a catalyst and initiator of change.
The exhibition includes research outcomes from collaborations with curators who have engaged with the artist on complex projects throughout her thirty-year practice: Irena Bekić (Croatia), Amanda de la Garza Mata (Mexico), Anca Verona Mihulet (Romania / South Korea) and Katharina Schlieben (Germany). By exploring the diversity of her oeuvre through these collaborations, the artist expands her prior research to embrace issues emerging from socially engaged artistic practice — questions of representation, marginality, collaborative practices, the aesthetics of action, etc. In other words, through experimentation with her own practice, Andreja Kulunčić establishes a broad foundation for multilayered inquiry into socially engaged art, its possible reflections and extensions, and social phenomena examined from multiple perspectives. These collaborative investigations also generate a rich accompanying program consisting of discursive and educational events and local‑community work.
Visitors are invited to engage with a variety of programs: intercultural activities, educational workshops, discursive sessions, and collective creation of the MSU garden. Through the exhibition and collaborative programming, audiences are encouraged to practice solidarity and share the risk of confronting paradigms upheld by privileged groups that neglect others reduced to mere survival. In this synergy and stimulating engagement, a collective field of action emerges — where I transforms into WE, within a shared approach extending beyond traditional political arenas.
The exhibition features the following projects: women.index, EQUALS– For the Acceptance of Diversity, You Betrayed the Party Just When You Should Have Helped It, We Learn to Make Space for Everyone, 1 CHF = 1 VOICE, Sight.seeing, Austrians Only, Bosnians Out!, On the State of the Nation, Creative Strategies, I’m Sorry… I’m Not Sorry, NAMA: 1,908 Employees, 15 Department Stores, Teenage Pregnancy, as well as three new works: Museum Garden / Edible Museum, Micro-situations of Togetherness: Creating the Experience of Being Together, and Meeting the Social Self.
Intercultural Program
As part of the new project Microsituations of Togetherness: Creating the Experience of Being Together, Andreja Kulunčić connects migrant workers with local residents to forge shared experiences and reflections on coexistence. Migrant workers — who have come to Croatia seeking better living conditions — bring their own customs, cultures, everyday practices, and both hopes and fears. Neither hosts nor newcomers always know how to build a shared future or what solidarity in diversity truly means. The program’s main focus — cultural diversity — unfolds through reflecting on past coexistence and imagining a shared vision of the future. The artist centers on two key aspects: examining equitable labor and living relations for migrant workers and expanding the space of contemporary art via a platform for cultural exchange with Filipino and Indonesian communities living and working in Croatia.
Their personal choices and collaborations present aspects of Filipino and Indonesian art and culture to the broader audience. The exhibition fosters dialogue and exchange — highlighting cultural specificity while offering these communities opportunities to connect with their heritage. Its aim is to engage a wider audience in the rich traditions of these cultures, promoting understanding and respect for cultural diversity in contemporary Croatian society.
Educational Workshops & Participatory Elements
More than 60 educational workshops and participatory segments are integrated into the exhibition, facilitating engagement with the audience and local community. Kulunčić’s works focus on socially engaged themes, interaction with diverse audiences, and collective projects — providing visitors with opportunities for active participation.
– women.index
During the exhibition, visitors are invited to leave a message on the toll-free number 0800 10 22, sharing whether they feel satisfied, discriminated, or abused. The results of these calls are displayed on a screen placed in a prominent location in the city, online, and within the exhibition space, creating a visual representation of social reality.
– You Betrayed the Party Just When You Should Have Helped It
Visitors are invited to participate in the collective creation of the counter-monument 850 Women for 850 Women, first initiated in previous iterations of the project. By crafting small clay sculptures, each one is symbolically dedicated to one of the 850 women punished in the political prison camps of Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur. The project also includes reading groups and discussions on the erasure of women’s history (HERstory) from dominant historical narratives, as well as on the specificities of women’s experiences of trauma.
– I’m Sorry… I’m Not Sorry
The public is invited to participate in a media-based – radio – intervention.
Creative Strategies & Museum Garden
To build community within an urban garden as part of the broader Creative Strategies project, a new work titled Museum Garden / Edible Museum has been realized. Through her artistic practice, Kulunčić works to construct spaces that foster social relationships, community practices, and empowerment through concepts such as collective care and reciprocity. This garden project is a new production within the framework of the retrospective. As is typical in her practice, the local context plays a key role. In this case, the artist seeks to create a social space that blurs the line between interior and exterior museum environments and enables neighbors and visitors to experiment with ideas of the common good. This involves architectural engagement with the museum building and use of underutilized platforms and terraces to create two gardens — one inside, the other in a peripheral area. These gardens serve not only as spaces for relaxation and conversation but as sites where gardening activities and caring for shared edibles and ornamentals generate collective responsibility. The museum transforms into a social agent, becoming porous, connecting with adjacent communities, and fostering communal bonds in a time of heightened individualization and alienation.
As part of the self‑organization and self‑education strand, a new project titled Meeting the Social Self is presented through a series of dialogic fragments performed by Alma Prica and Jadranka Đokić. This work responds to the artist’s intent to delve into the complex weave of social relationships. It examines various levels of understanding the social: from the imposed perspective of observation, to recognition of how society is constituted, through learning about its configuration, to deeper awareness that we all are inevitably part of its social fabric. That fabric shapes us — and through our actions, we also shape it.
The Creative Strategies project also includes direct democracy workshops for high school students and discussions with workers and migrants, in collaboration with the group Direct Democracy in School.
Discursive Program
The discursive component consists of discussions tied to themes central to the artist’s work and realized projects — feminism, gender equality, trauma, migration. The exhibition is far more than a gallery experience: Kulunčić’s works are socially engaged and participatory, and the exhibition reaches its full potential only through the realization of these programs.
Artist Biography
Visual artist Andreja Kulunčić (b. 1968) investigates various aspects of social relationships and social practice in her works, focusing on socially engaged themes, interaction with diverse audiences, and collaboration on collective projects. Through her own interdisciplinary networks, her art becomes a practice of research, collaboration, co‑creation, and self‑organization. She frequently invites audiences to actively participate and “complete” her works. A transdisciplinary approach — combining artistic skills with those from sociology, anthropology, psychology, design, programming, and other fields — is a core feature of her practice. Her projects often address symptoms of contemporary society — from xenophobia to depression — with special emphasis on pressing issues in transitional and post‑transitional contexts. She regularly collaborates with marginalized groups, creating platforms for expression and participation. The gallery is often transformed into a workshop and learning space — a kind of social laboratory whose outcomes resonate in everyday life. By operating at the peripheries and directing her critique toward central values of imaginary institutions in globalized societies and their imposed divisions, her artistic production proposes the capacity of art to generate polemical foundations for rethinking and deconstructing institutional forms and building new ones.
Kulunčić earned her degree in sculpture in 1992 from the Faculty of Applied Arts and Design in Belgrade. From 1992 to 1994 she continued her studies in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. She has been a member of HDLU (Croatian Association of Visual Artists) since 1996. Since 2009 she has taught New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She is the co‑founder of the association Multidisciplinary Author Projects and Actions (MAPA) for art, science, and technology, founded in 2001 in Zagreb. Her work has been exhibited at major international exhibitions including Documenta 11 (Kassel), Manifesta 4 (Frankfurt), 8th Istanbul Biennial, Liverpool Biennial 04, and the 10th India Triennale (New Delhi), as well as in group shows at institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), PS1 (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), MUAC (Mexico City), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Kumu Art Museum (Tallinn), MSU (Zagreb), +MSUM (Ljubljana), Zachęta National Gallery (Warsaw), Garage Museum (Moscow), Lentos Kunstmuseum (Linz), Museum of Modern Art (Saint‑Étienne), and Ludwig Museum (Budapest). Her solo exhibitions include venues such as the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City), Jorge Vargas Museum (Manila), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Rijeka), Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade), Museo MADRE (Naples), Palazzo Clabassi (Udine), Art in General (New York), Artspace Visual Art Centre (Sydney), Galerija Miroslav Kraljević (Zagreb), Galerija Nova (Zagreb), and Galerija Prozori (Zagreb). She has participated in residencies and fellowships such as MUAC & SOMA (Mexico City), Art in General (New York), University of Johannesburg (South Africa), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Artspace (Sydney), and the 10th India Triennale (Jaipur). Web site: www.andreja.info