Until We Are More Than Gold: A Triptych

Within the framework of the European Capital of Culture 2024, the artist Selma Selman is showing a triptych with the title Until We Are More Than Gold: A Triptych, consisting of a video performance, an installation, and a film, referring to the state of the post-war economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the economic crisis, Selman’s family began collecting scrap metal and later selling it to recycling centers. By repeatedly revisiting the motif of collecting and recycling scrap metal, she questions the way we assign value to material objects and labor, and how we relate to both. The video performance features documentation of her Motherboards performance, in which the artist disassembles 200 motherboards and ultimately extracts 60 grams of gold from them. An installation of four portraits painted on car hoods captures the memory of the first large wedding Selman’s family attended after the war. The film Crossing The Blue Bridge completes the triptych with a 30-minute exploration of Selman’s mother’s memories of a traumatic event on the so-called “Blue Bridge”. The opening will be accompanied by the performative reading of Letters of Omar.