Sam Durant
Nonaligned Echoes, Gifts and Returns
Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro
Curated by Natalija Vujošević
Nonaligned Echoes: Gifts and Returns continues the trajectory of Sam Durant’s work Proposal for Non-Aligned Monuments, Free Movement (2020) and represents the latest iteration in a series of projects addressing the postcolonial period, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the intersection of cultural production and struggles for independence.
By researching archives of the Collection of art from Non-Aligned Countries, the artist selects 25 artworks for this exhibition that depict groups of people engaged in various activities, ranging from fieldwork, dance, and religious gatherings, to portrayals of workers’ protests, and anti-colonial struggles. A luminous sign in the gallery’s window displays the famous slogan “Another World is Possible,” known as the motto of the World Social Forum 2001 which, addressing passersby from the gallery window, becomes a statement, question, and call to action.
By accompanying work with workstations and a reading area, the artist invites visitors to join in learning, reflecting, and imagining an alternative world by creating monuments, writing slogans, and learning from past ideas that once envisioned different futures from the one that has materialized. In this way, the exhibition evolves into an active, process-oriented space and collective artwork. The artist carefully arranges these elements in relation to one another, fostering intercommunication that activates signposts and redefines roles within a space that invites engagement. By subverting the often intimidating role of monuments—typically erected by those who wield power and thereby control the interpretation of history—the work transforms them into sketches for a better world, conceived and created by the hands of ordinary people.
Shaped as a complex hybrid of historical, artistic, curatorial, educational, and participatory elements, the exhibition serves as a polygon for rehearsing and activating ideas of a common future that can offer alternatives to the violent and vertical mechanisms of a dystopian reality.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring texts by Bojana Piškur and Natalija Vujošević, as well as an interview with the artist.