In her artistic work, Lana Čmajčanin pursues several long-term projects that deal with the atrocities and traumas of the Bosnian wars (1992 - 1995), the civil war in Syria and the refugee tragedies on the international refugee routes and in the Mediterranean.
Lana Čmajčaninwas born in Sarajevo and studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Art. She works against forgetting, gives anonymous victims a voice and upholds the memory and remembrance of the more than 20,000 registered women and girls who were victims of brutal and organised rape - as a weapon of war - during the Bosnian war.
Central to her work is the question of memory and knowledge about the construction of history. Because this historical knowledge is instrumentalised by both sides and misused to justify the historical necessity of their objectives, her art addresses this interface.
Her group of works "Blank Maps" deals with cartography as a political instrument that defines regions, spheres of influence and nations. "551.35 - Geometry of Time" from 2014 superimposes 35 maps of the so-called Balkan Peninsula from over 551 years. The borders become fluid, offering no arguments in favour of war, but rather a plea for peaceful coexistence.