The Suite (212) Sessions, no. 18 - Nada Prlja

Suite (212)

In the wake of the coronavirus epidemic and shutting down of much of the UK's cultural life, we have decided to bring you a series of interviews with contemporary artists, writers, filmmakers and other cultural figures, conducted via Skype (so apologies for the diminished audio quality), about their practices, the political issues that inspire them and the socio-economic conditions that have shaped their work. In the eighteenth of these Sessions, Juliet talks to artist Nada Prlja about her project Subversion to Red, made to represent the Republic of North Macedonia at the Venice Biennale in 2019. They discuss every aspect of Prlja’s multi-disciplinary project: its engagement with socialist ideology and legacies; its response to the Biennale’s ‘interesting times’ theme; the importance of the round table events with Chantal Mouffe and others; the history of North Macedonia, before and after the break-up of Yugoslavia, and the transformation of post-socialist Skopje; and the Subtle Subversion series in which Prlja re-created works by Yugoslav artists, such as Jordan Grabulovski and Borko Lazeski, as an act of solidarity. A full list of references for the programme, with links, can be found via our Patreon at www.patreon.com/suite212, and are available to $3 subscribers.