Atlantic's Grief
Whippersnapper Gallery, Kensington Market, Toronto, Canada, July 2023
Atlantic’s Grief was a multimedia art exhibit that explored lineage, diaspora, familial death, loneliness, and, ultimately, grief. The artist can trace their lineage back several hundreds of years to a handful of small villages across what is known today as Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia, and she was the first person in her lineage to be born outside of the region after her parents fled the Yugoslav wars to Canada in the mid-1990s. After the recent passing of several immediate family members overseas, the relationship between the artist, her current place of residence, and the homelands of her ancestors has been further complicated. Through Atlantic’s Grief, created by lead artist Andrea Josic through the support of VIBE Arts, audiences gained insight into what it means to: grow up without a familial community, experience the loss of loved ones overseas, and understand the nuances of multi-generational diaspora.
Atlantic’s Grief was comprised of original work created by the artist - three poems and six photographs. The exhibit begins on the left-hand side of the gallery with a display of five photographs printed on canvas. The two landscape photographs on either side were taken throughout the Bosnian countryside, featuring houses that were bombed and fled during the Yugoslav wars. As a result of over three decades of abandon, the houses are being reclaimed by nature, with plants growing through and engulfing the houses. The portrait photograph in the middle is a childhood photo of the artist and her grandfather, with whom she was extremely close despite only seeing a handful of times in her life, overlaid with hand-painted vines, representing the loss and disconnect of memories due to diaspora.
In the corner between the left and centre walls is a collection of fractured bricks designed to mimic the brickwork found in Eastern Europe. Intertwined with vines, this portion of the exhibit brings to physical reality the ruins that remain scattered across the countryside.
Displayed on the centre wall are three poems: In Which I Travel Backwards Through Time Zones to Undo the Death of My Kin, I Dreamt About My Grandmother Dying Again, and He Who Keeps the Mountains. These pieces explore the passing of family members who lives overseas, the complicated and tragic guilt and fractured grief caused by separated familial community, and the fear that death instills about losing loved ones again in the future. The sixth and final photograph that concludes the artist’s portion of the exhibit is a wide-lens shot of the town the artist’s grandmother still lives in.
Following the journey throughout the exhibit, audience members were encouraged to submit a handwritten letter to home, however they choose to describe it. By the end of the exhibit, there were over 100 submissions in several languages and multiple mediums, including short stories, drawings, letters, poetry, and more. Atlantic’s Grief captivated audiences and inspired hundreds of conversations and ideas about home, lineage, connection, and community.
