Selma Selman - Emergency Fellowship 2020/21

My approach to, and passion for, art and teaching are deeply informed by my personal experiences and coming of age during the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995. During the war, my family and the peοple of my hometown Bihać, spent three-and-a-half years under siege, with no electricity or regular food supplies. In my memories of those times, pictures of violence, destruction, and displacement are intertwined with the reminiscences of friendship, family support, and neighbors cooking together. These experiences of war and postwar devastation were deepened by the fact that I belong to one of Europe’s most marginalized cοmmunities—the Roma. As a Roma woman, I embody an intersection of several identities—ethnic, gender, and linguistic—which position me extremely unfavorably in relation to power.

Through the support of the Onassis ΑiR Emergency Fellowship, I plan to continue my research on a new project tentatively titled “We, Who Are Dreaming Of”. The project will use immersive photographic and image technologies to record, make lucid, and reconcile dreams and realities for refugees—those who have lived through, in spite of, and against war. In order to delve into these processes, I use ‘affective forecasting’ to understand the way in which peοple, especially refugees, remember their feelings of past events and relate to future ones.