Gordana Čavić was considered as beautiful as her own creation. He died in Paris in 1987 under strange circumstances. He was 48 years old. One autumn morning, she left her home in Kúcanci, Slavonia, in the former Yugoslavia and modern-day Croatia, in silence, not wanting to explain herself to her first husband, Perica Kadić, a farmer. She had vowed never to live like her mother, who was pitied by the neighbors because her husband had eloped with another woman. The young woman took a train to Belgrade, where she lived for some time before realizing her dream of settling near the Seine. She spent her short but intense life surrounded by secrets, protected under multiple identities. Of rumors pointing to espionage and prostitution plans. “What he did is surprising that it took so long,” his own mother said on the day of his funeral in his home country. “They sealed his coffin with lead, and they sealed it well. If it hadn’t been, it would have spread.”
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Gordana poses in profile. Dressed in a fine, flowing dress, she gingerly reaches for a red rose while appearing to caress the stuffed bear’s head, whose huge mouth opens in front of the viewer. “I’m not sure if he wanted to be scary himself or scream in fear,” notes photographer Dragana Jurišić (Slavonski Brod, Croatia). It was one of the first pictures the artist saw of her aunt; It had been kept in a box of chocolates along with a few other crumpled photos. Along with a Super 8 camera, they were among the few possessions kept by the family of the enigmatic and glamorous relatives she preferred not to talk about. Gordana’s portraits structure Her Own, Jurišić’s latest publication, whose red, velvety cover is reminiscent of a candy box, while the inner workings are reminiscent of crime novels from the 1960s. He composes a story in which text and image seamlessly complement each other, so that it runs through a kind of fictional biography, as artless as it is full of poetry, in whose richness of nuances the story of a country that was severely punished by the barbarity of war shines. A powerful narrative that intertwines the stories of women from different eras, whose stories have been silenced for various reasons, as well as those of the author herself, to form a complex and sensitive mosaic of female identities, striving to find their freedom so are really as expected. “To all those with heavy wings who wanted to fly,” the dedication reads.
Image from the book “Her Own” by Dragana Jurišić. Self-published (2022). Dragana Jurišić
Thus the tragic figure of L’Inconnue del Seine finds a place in this narrative. An unidentified young woman whose body was found in the Parision River in the late 19th century. The serene beauty emanating from her death mask – for easier identification – served as an inspirational object for Man Ray, Albert Camus, Anaïs Nin and Rainer Maria Rilke, among many other artists, “who projected imaginary identities to this Mona Lisa is Drowned,” Jurišić points out . “Her image speaks of a deep relationship between beauty and artistic effort. Between the cult of beauty and the concept of truth”. Both Gordana and L’Inconnue fed the fantasies of others. So does Léona Camille Ghislaine Delacourt, the protagonist of Nadja, the famous novel by André Breton. “A young woman in the midst of a psychotic crisis, her self disintegrates as the sun explodes in slow motion. For a surrealist, Léona was a perfect guide into the unknown,” writes the photographer. After writing the novel, which summarized the great themes of the surrealist movement, the author gave up his muse. “Sex with Nadja,” Breton said, was “like sex with Joan of Arc.” The young woman was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where she spent years in prison until her death. The father of surrealism never visited her.
“Gordana Čavić, a dead woman unable to speak for herself. Am I different from Breton, a writer who made a platform for himself by sacrificing a soul from Limbo? She herself uses her own experiences to express the pain, stoic resilience, survival instinct and, above all, the yearning for freedom that surrounds the various women who populate the work, to make them muses erased from history recover the flight of their memories.
Her own. Dragana Jurisic. Self published. 117 pages 50 euros.
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