Crawford Art Gallery is now closed for redevelopment.

Milica Rakić, 'Red if you did not exist we would have to invent you', 2021. Still image, photo Aleksandrija Ajduković.

(2021) 20:09 mins

Red if you did not exist we would have to invent you by Milica Rakić focuses on the issue of female emancipation in post-war Yugoslavia, and on the critique of patriarchal coded interpretations - both in the historical and contemporary context.

The observations of the artist's alter ego friend Rakič - which she performs in tandem with the art historian and performer Vladimir Bjeličić - are contrasted with real archival materials related to the activities of the Anti-Fascist Women's Front.

By combining feature and documentary film scenes, along with the off-screen narration, a narrative treats the national liberation struggle and the socialist revolution as something unfinished.

With universal themes of women’s emancipation, gender issues, participation and visibility of women in public life, Rakić - through the leftist-utopian narrative- develops her own model of criticism, pointing to revolutionary action and the creation of a new utopia without which there is no art.