Film installation, 60′, loop
English spoken
2024-2025
Don’t Take It Personally is a film concert that intertwines themes of historical denial, collective violence, exile, and resistance. It offers a biting indictment of human and societal behaviour during unstable times shaped by capitalism and imperial greed
Don’t Take It Personally is a film concert that intertwines themes of historical denial, collective violence, exile, and resistance. It unfolds as a bold protest film—an urgent, powerful indictment of human behaviour and societal dynamics in times of upheaval, shaped by the forces of capitalism and imperial greed. In a world increasingly suffocated by systemic injustices, where many are denied the right to breathe, “Don’t Take It Personally” emerges as a reclamation of that breath. Through the rhythm and cadence of its sequences, Jureša weaves a tapestry of relationships, inviting viewers to perceive capitalism as a pervasive infection, designed to seep systemic toxicity into the smallest details of our daily lives.
The first movement serves as a ten-minute prologue—a visual score that navigates European museum collections, signaling how capitalism was not only glorified in the paintings of the “Dutch Golden Age” but also how the violence underpinning this period was concealed in plain sight.
The second movement transitions into a live performance captured on 16mm film, featuring Dutch-Indonesian tap dancer Marije Nie and Croatian musicians Alen and Nenad Sinkauz. Their rhythmic exchange blends movement, sound, and speech, creating a dynamic interplay that highlights the dual nature of tap dancing as both a means of self-expression and an act of protest. The performer’s voice draws from the writings of Dubravka Ugrešić (1949–2023), who defied nationalist narratives in the wake of the Yugoslav Wars, leading to her exile in Amsterdam in 1993. The language during this section is guttural, beginning with a deep frustration toward a system that consumes us alive ‘like rats.’ From (micro)aggressions to genocide, from mass killings to capitalistic systems of oppression, the narrator’s voice booms with a warning.
