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 the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Open Society Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Šehović earned her BA from the University of Vermont and her MFA from 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? How do we remember? What is a monument? 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
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)
Washington University St. Louis “Memory for the Future Lab” (workshop)
Kunsthaus Dresden “Lines of Flight” (panel discussion)
KUMA International Summer School “Between Past and Future” (workshop)
Van Abbemuseum/KRAK Center for Contemporary Culture “Geographies of Belonging” (panel discussion)
Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina “Between the archive and the monument” (panel discussion)
University of Antwerp “The Fractured Heart of Europe” (panel discussion)
Phillips Exeter Academy (artist lecture)
University of Bologna (artist lecture)
2021
Canadian Museum for Human Rights “Art is action: Responding to genocide through art” (panel discussion)
Helsinški Parlament Građana Banja Luka “Ultimate Survival Leadership Camp” (workshop)
History in Between “Bridging the past and present”
KUMA International School Art and Remembrance, Bosnia and Herzegovina (workshop)
KUMA International Summer School, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (workshop)
KUPEK Epizoda 301: Aidom Šehović ~ ŠTO TE NEMA (podcast)
Laumeier Sculpture Park “Conversation Series: Gallery talk with Aida Šehović” (panel discussion)
Laumeier Sculpture Park “Community Reflection and Healing” (workshop)
Laumeier Sculpture Park “ŠTO TE NEMA Exhibition Volunteer Program” (workshop)
Phillips Exeter Academy (artist lecture)
Post-Conflict Research Center “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 “Uloga umjetnosti u izgradnji mira” (workshop)
2020
“ŠTO TE NEMA nomadic monument” Christie’s Education, New York, NY (artist lecture)
ŠTO TE NEMA 2020 Conversations “Reflection, and culmination of the last 15 years” (panel discussion)
Visiting Artist, Mount Holyoke College (artist lecture)
Raritan Valley Community College (artist lecture)
Mount Holyoke College (artist lecture)
Post-Conflict Research Center “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 “Integrating Prevention and Building Resilience in a Challenging Political Environment” (workshop)
University of the Arts/Pig Iron Theatre Company (workshop)
The Harriman Institute at Columbia University (artist lecture)
2018
601 Artspace (panel discussion)
The New School (workshop)
“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 “Proof of Existence” (panel discussion)
WARM Festival (panel discussion)
2017
The New School (artist lecture)
Southern Connecticut State University (artist lecture)
2016
Harriman Institute at Columbia University “Memorialization and the Role of Reparative Justice in the Balkans” (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)