Selma Selman: Crossing the Blue Bridge

Selma Selman: Crossing the Blue Bridge 
Selma Selman is one of the highest-acclaimed artists of the younger generation, who has consistently scrutinized her Roma origins in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as issues related to Romani communities in the wider international context. 

Röda Sten Konsthall presents Crossing the Blue Bridge, Selma Selman’s first solo exhibition in Sweden. The exhibition is conceived around Selman’s new film of the same name, and is based on her mother’s memories of war in her native Bihać during 1994. It binds together the different socio-political and cultural contexts which Selma Selman sovereignly inhabits. 

“I utilize my personal experiences rooted in my Roma origin, interactions within the Roma community, and broader societal structures as material for my art. These experiences are then reinterpreted through a multi-dimensional and multi-scale feminist perspective.” —Selma Selman 

Selected works featured in the exhibition include the video and sound installations A Pink Room of Her Own, You Have No Idea, and Superpositional Letters to Omer, a series of drawings on paper titled Superpositional Intersectionalism, and a monumental installation The First Wedding, part of the triptych Until We Are More Than Gold.  

In The First Wedding, four women from Selman’s family are depicted on the hoods of Mercedes cars, as a tribute to her family’s creative ability to survive the post-war economic crisis by recycling scrap metal. 

“Being painted as aristocrat´s portraits, but on luxury car hoods instead of canvases, parts that hold a true value when belonging to a car, these women emerge as heroines who managed to survive in harsh conditions of life, making them immortal.” —Selma Selman 

Images from the exhibition can be accessed here. 

The artist performed Superpositional Letters to Omer at the opening of the exhibition. A subsequent series of programs have focused on themes of identity, heritage, power and resistance, and a large-scale interdisciplinary program will take place April 13 in the form of an Open Stage. 

April 8 is International Roma Day, dedicated to the largest ethnic minority in Europe. In a celebration of Roma culture, Röda Sten Konsthall invites visitors to explore Selma Selman´s exhibition and learn more about issues facing the Roma. The exhibition is open until April 21. 

Selma Selman was born in 1991 in Ružica, Bihać, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She divides her time between New York, Bihać, and Amsterdam, where she recently completed a residency at the Rijksakademie, and where she currently lives. Sensitive, harsh and ironic gestures alternate in her work, revealing identity discrimination, role expectations and stereotypes.  

Selman´s work has been shown at Gropius Bau, Hamburger Bahnhof, documenta fifteen, Manifesta 14, Kunstraum Innsbruck, MO Museum Vilnius, Kasseler Kunstverein Museum Fridericianum, the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Acb Gallery, the FutuRoma Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, and many other venues.  

She is the founder of the organization ”Get The Heck To School”, whose mission is to empower Roma girls facing poverty and societal ostracization around the world. 

Crossing the Blue Bridge is realized in collaboration with Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, which will open a solo exhibition of Selman’s in June, and Bad Ischl, the 2024 European Capital of Culture, where her work will be exhibited in September.  

The exhibition is produced with support from The Mondriaan Fund, the public cultural funding organization focusing on visual arts and cultural heritage. 

Curator: Amila Puzić 
Director: Mia Christersdotter Norman 
Press contact: Maria Lundberg, ml@rodastenkonsthall.se