Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska, Uprooted (2015), industrial linen fabric, graphite, acrylic paint, textile paint, cotton thread, 750 x 220 cm. Installation view, "The Event of a Tread: Global Narratives in Textiles", 2024, organized by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) and MoCA – Skopje, curated by Susanne Weiß, Inka Gressel, and Jovanka Popova.
 

This textile work, created through a combination of painting, drawing, and sewing techniques, is inspired by the ongoing artistic interest of Ivanoska and Calovski in how contemporaneity shapes our cultural and political readings of the present. The artwork incorporates industrial linen fabric, graphite, acrylic paint, textile paint, and cotton thread, with each medium contributing to the overall visual and tactile experience. References to the universal language of social inequality, lack of empathy, and emotional distance that occupy public space—as well as the need to articulate spiritual restlessness and imagine new forms of community—are woven into the fabric of the work, both literally and metaphorically.

Simone Weil’s (1909–1943) statement that “uprootedness is the greatest plague of the twentieth century” resonates with particular urgency today, in light of widespread human suffering caused by global socio-political upheavals. Using a predominantly monochrome palette, Uprooted metaphorically links the anthropology of linen production with Weil’s writings, including notions such as “to desire without an object,” “to desire without any wishes,” “to sweeten what is bitter,” and “to be rooted in the absence of a place.” These ideas are interwoven with the recurring motif of the circle—symbolising unity and continuity—and with the spiritual undercurrents found in the metaphysical paintings of Hilma af Klint (1862–1944). The work is completed with a fragment from Berlin’s open urban spaces, experienced as sites of self-organisation for undocumented immigrants, directing attention to the contemporary socio-political context of Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis.