In December 2023 my video A Performance of Valour was screened at the Alternative Film Video Festival in Belgrade, Serbia where it was one of three films that was included in the List of Significant Achievements, plus it won the Sonja Savić Award.

The award includes an artist residency and an exhibition at the Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery in Čačak, Serbia - the institution that supports this award.

At the time, I wrote about the significance of the award to me here, and below is an extract.

The Sonja Savić Award is named after the Serbian actor Sonja Savić (1961-2008), described as an “an outspoken critic of the direction the country was taking, in terms of cultural and political values”. I also found this quote about her, “She was a bit of an alien who was not interested in ordinary, trivial things, both in life and in acting." She was also Virgo like me.
Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery is named after Nadežda Petrović (1873-1915), a Serbian painter, an educator, an art critic, an activist, founded the Circle of Serbian Sisters and the Serbian Art Association. She was also a war nurse during the Balkan Wars and World War I.
Alternative Film Video is a festival that was established in 1982 in Belgrade, Serbia (Yugoslavia).
“The festival provides a glimpse of the current state of new film and video tendencies in the region and the world...The festival’s specificity since the beginning is that it doesn’t award films hierarchically – instead, the jury selects works for the List of the Significant Achievements of the festival.”

All of this information about the festival and the awards feels extremely befitting, and I am honored and happy for this recognition.

I arrived in Cacak last week to set up my exhibition and start my artist residency.

The exhibition opened on September 19 and is part of “Sonja September” biennial is dedicated to Sonja Savic including an exhibition to show the latest winning works from the Alternative Film Video Festival.

My exhibition is titled Performances, Portrayals, and in addition to The Performance of Valour, it includes works I made recently and in the past few years that include prints, textiles, photography and a couple of other videos.

via Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery’s post on Instagram:

This year’s fourth edition (and second in biennial mode) of Sonja’s September will be dedicated to Hind Mezaina, artist from Dubai (UAE), winner of Sonja Savić Award at the Alternative Film Video Festival in Belgrade in 2023 for her work A Performance of Valour.

As part of the event, Performances, Portrayals opening on Friday, September 19 at 7pm in Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery, an exhibition of works by the award winning artist including audio/video/spatial installations.

At the opening, the audience will have the opportunity to talk with the artist currently in Čačak for her artist residency.
Milan Milosavljević, head of the Academic Film Center, Predrag Živković Curator at Nadezda Petrovic Art Gallery and Hind Mezaina will speak at a panel about her art practice.

27 September: A program dedicated to the book Daj, babo, glavu! (Come on, babo, the head!) by Vladislava Vojnovic which is dedicated to How Rock and Roll Failed, the cult Yugoslavian film from 1989 in which Sonja achieved one of her most remarkable roles. The program will feature a discussion between the author and Sasa Radojevic, playwright, theorist and film critic, moderated by Isidora Dolovix, a philologist and independent worker in culture.

30 September: Screening of works selected by Hind Mezaina about the development of Dubai and the intensive transformation of the city in a relatively short period of time.

List of works in the exhibition:
- A Performance of Valour (2023)
Supported by Abu Dhabi Art's Beyond: Emerging Artists 2020 (Abu Dhabi Art 2020) and Portrait of a Nation II: Beyond Narratives, 2022 (Abu Dhabi Art & Music Foundation)

- Dancing Girls (video) and Film Strips (textile) from 2016
Made during my time at the Salama Emerging Artist Fellowship (2015-2016).

- Faten Hamama’s Kiss (2025)
A video essay I made this June at the Arab Stardom Mini-Residency in London organised by the Arab British Centre and SAFAR Film Festival. Wrote about it here.

- Print and slideshow of my photos from the series The Creek is For Me. The Creek is For Us. (2024-onging)

- Prints and slideshow of Good Life (2023), and Great Night Life zine (2024)

- Video montage featuring scenes from:
These Are the Trucial States (World Wide Pictures, Imperial War Museum, 1954)
Portrait of Dubai (Spectator Films, British Petroleum, 1970)
Back in Dubai (Promotional Video for the 27th World Chess Olympiad in Dubai, Dubai TV, 1986)
Code 46 (Michael Winterbottom, 2003)

Huge thanks to Predrag Živković, Curator at Nadezda Petrovic Art Gallery for working with me on this, and letting me group all these works together that I never considered before. A lovely and respectable relationship that I personally don't get to experience often with art curators. Also huge thanks to Milan Milosavljević, head of the Academic Film Center for the discussion at the exhibition and after.
Both these men are fighting the good fight.

Here are a few photos, some by me and some from Nadežda Petrović Art Gallery’s Instagram account.

The first three were taken by me of digital billboards in the city centre advertising the exhibition, funded by the city. Made me wish the there was a budget allocated by the Ministry of Culture to promote cultural events, especially for not-for-profit institutions and spaces.

Dedicating this exhibition to Neil Young, the curator of Alternative Film Video Festival in 2023 for including my work in the line up, and to the three jury members belit sağ, Dušica Dražić and Igor Simic for selecting it.