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Please introduce yourself, describe what your artistic practice is focused on at the moment?

My name is Jelisaveta, but Jeli seems to work more often, pronounced as if it were written ‘Yeli’. I toy with curating, production and PR during the week and care for my art practice during the weekends. I often use humor to trick into conversation more serious topics that I feel deserve space. I recently realized that I myself am very present in my works, which might seem obvious if you had a chance to go through any of my projects, but it took me a while to realize it, as I don't consider my work personal. I like the idea of safe spaces but I also feel they are very problematic and that such cannot be developed or built; I also like to contemplate false care systems we are told are in place, hence I see myself as a stager of interactions and spaces that might not happen otherwise.

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What are your real and desired conditions for art production?

With the way my rhythm is at the moment, I produce art purposely, meaning usually once an opportunity arises and I know the conditions. I guess this is a result of having a 9-17h job which also asks for a lot of your creativity and witty thinking. Ideally though, I would have a larger living space, in which I can have a spare room which functions as an office/studio from which I could manage the two currents in my life and still be close to my kitchen, toilet, bed. This is the way I imagine the ideal work/life flow, at least now as I am not a caregiver to another; however due to current sky high rents I think I’ll only get to daydream about this luxury from my room in a shared flat I live in.

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What are your experiences of collaborative art and educational practices so far?

In 2020 when the pandemic hit I ‘’opened up’’ a pop-up hair salon where I offered (and still do) hair cutting therapy sessions in exchange for goods and services. I am not a trained hairdresser nor a therapist. This economic system offered for collaborations to take place which might not otherwise and opened up conversations about education, value, class… Aside from WeAreOpen, I have taken on a few other elastic roles in informal project based formations, artist run spaces and schools similar to WHW Akademija.

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How do these times of economic, social and ecological crises affect your art practice?

Well, I would say I have known no other state of being, so I’d say they don’t… same old, same old…

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Name about 10 words/associations/notions that first come to your mind when you think of engaged eco-social participatory practices?

Generosity, hospitality, in vain, borderless, elastic, love….

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