Aida Šehović
Photo of Aida Šehović by Gabrielė Žukauskaitė.BIOGRAPHY
Aida Šehović was born in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1977. She is the founder and caretaker of ŠTO TE NEMA.
Šehović is the recipient of Culture Push and Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowships, and was an artist in residence at the Grand Central Art Center, LMCC, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Vermont Studio Center. Recent exhibitions include Ars Aevi Nucleus Kyiv, Canadian Museum of Human Rights, Kunsthaus Dresden, Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, KRAK Center for Contemporary Culture, Laumeier Sculpture Park, and ARTIVISM: Atrocity Prevention Pavilion during the 58th Venice Biennale.
Her work has received support from Creative Industries Fund NL, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Open Society Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Šehović earned her BA with Honors from the University of Vermont and her MFA as a Jacob K. Javits Fellow from CUNY Hunter College.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Aida Šehović uses art as a tool to create models for collective acts of healing, mourning and remembrance. Her work draws together multiple perspectives from the fields of public art, socially engaged art, sculpture, drawing and time-based media.
She is specifically interested in how the historical memory of genocide, loss and displacement is inscribed across time and place.
Who writes history? What is a monument? How do we remember? Should the people or the state be the custodian of our collective memory?
While a dominant or central culture has the means to be grand and to memorialize its past, the periphery has performance, oral traditions and rituals. These are the materials she uses. Her frequent collaborations with the public are based on a reciprocal process of empathy and care.
Artist Lectures, Talks and Workshops
2024
Feminisms in Transnational Perspective Conference [artist lecture]
Trauma Informed Care in War and Conflict Conference [workshop]
Sarajevo Film Festival [screening & conversation]
Threshold Foundation Conference [workshop]
Hidden Histories symposium [project presentation]
University of Tuzla [artist lecture]
Nieuwe Instituut [workshop]
Istituto Majorana Moncalieri [workshop]
Liceo Artistico Nervi-Severini Ravenna [workshop]
Liceo Statale Carlo Porta Monza [workshop]
Art of Peace Conference [artist lecture]
United Nations Fund for Population Activities BiH [workshop]
JUMS Građevinsko-geodetska škola Tuzla [master class]
KUMA International Summer School “Landscape, Memory and Heritage ” [artist lecture]
2023
Why Remember Conference [keynote address]
Ellipsis Fold of Memory [workshop]
Orsolino High School Milan [workshop]
Independent School for the City [artist lecture]
KUMA International Summer School “Landscape, Memory and Heritage ” [workshop]
Peace and Conflict Culture Network “Developing trauma informed practices and pedagogies” [panel discussion]
radioelsewheres: Claudia Zini in Conversation with Aida Šehović to Present ŠTO TE NEMA [podcast]
2022
Cornell University [artist lecture]
Memory for the Future Lab at Washington University St. Louis [workshop]
Kunsthaus Dresden [panel discussion]
KUMA International Summer School [workshop]
KRAK Center for Contemporary Culture / Van Abbemuseum [panel discussion]
Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina [panel discussion]
University of Antwerp [panel discussion]
Phillips Exeter Academy [artist lecture]
University of Bologna [artist lecture]
2021
Canadian Museum for Human Rights [panel discussion]
Helsinški Parlament Građana Banja Luka [workshop]
History in Between [artist lecture]
KUMA International School Art and Remembrance [workshop]
KUMA International Summer Schoo [workshop]
KUPEK Epizoda 301: Aidom Šehović ~ ŠTO TE NEMA (podcast)
Laumeier Sculpture Park [panel discussion]
Laumeier Sculpture Park [artist lecture]
Laumeier Sculpture Park [workshop]
Phillips Exeter Academy [artist lecture]
PCRC Srebrenica Youth School [workshop]
ŠTO TE NEMA “Reflection and the Future” [panel discussion]
University of Arizona [artist lecture]
Washington University St. Louis [artist lecture]
Webster University [artist lecture]
Zaboravljena djeca rata [workshop]
2020
Christie’s Education New York [artist lecture]
ŠTO TE NEMA 2020 Conversations “Reflection, and culmination of the last 15 years” [panel discussion]
Mount Holyoke College [artist lecture]
Raritan Valley Community College [artist lecture]
PCRC Srebrenica Youth School [workshop]
KULTURE SEĆANJA u DIJALOGU Epizoda 2: ŠTO TE NEMA [podcast]
Radio Slobodna Evropa: Između umjetnosti i sjećanja [podcast]
2019
Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities [workshop]
University of the Arts/Pig Iron Theatre Company [workshop]
The Harriman Institute at Columbia University [artist lecture]
2018
The New School [workshop]
601 Artspace [panel discussion]
“ŠTO TE NEMA “Ein nomadisches Monument” [panel discussion]
KUMA International School Summer School [workshop]
University of New Orleans [artist lecture]
Western Kentucky University [workshop]
Western Kentucky University [panel discussion]
WARM Festival [panel discussion]
2017
The New School [artist lecture]
Southern Connecticut State University [artist lecture]
2016
Harriman Institute at Columbia University [panel discussion]
Bosnian and Herzegovinian Diasporic Conference [keynote address]
Pace University [artist lecture]
2015
American University “To Remember and Reflect” [panel discussion]
Skowhegan Project Space “Recovery or Semblance of Recovery” [panel discussion]
2014
Connecticut College [artist lecture]
2013
Yale University [artist lecture]
Untitled Art Fair “Curating Social Practices” [panel discussion]
2012
Hunter College [artist lecture]
Trinity College [artist lecture]
Yale University [artist lecture]