mersiha messiha aka Mesihović is a trans-disciplinary artist born in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Out of her engagement in the arts, politics and interest in renewal thorough a collision of the two, a nomadic platform, CIRCUITDEBRIS is born. CIRCUITDEBRIS is dedicated to conceptualizing her collaboration across disciplines and her passion for research oriented praxis and community engagement.
CIRCUITDEBRIS is an interdisciplinary practice, with roots in Bosnia and Herzegovina but located in New York. Which forms does the practice cover? I am fascinated by re-imagining possibilities of what "already is" and can see myself exploring a new form of expression within my primary discipline, or I will dabble in unfamiliar territory to discover particular element/s I am imagining in the larger constellation or the format that I choose the work to exist in.
You are named a 'refugee artist', can you explain what was your journey? As a refugee, it must have created a difference in communicating your message with the audience.
Experiencing war, destruction and displacement leaves intense marks on the body. In my work I develop various strategies for listening and honoring the knowledge of the body & that which needs to be told through me. And for many years that was what came through me, the story of what it could mean to move as a refugee in Europe and in the West.
Art you create is developed with elements of dance, sound, film, drawing, writing, and ethnography to address larger social issues in the globalized world. Could you tell us more about these issues, what are you focused on?
I am fascinated by the human body. I continuously explore its possibilities. I believe it can offer us new ways to imagine in regards to how we organize our societies as we move into the future.
Share with us your latest project, and plans for 2022. Has the mass digitization during pandemics created a difference in your plans?
2022 has been a beautiful year already. I had the opportunity to come together with some wonderful Bosnian artists and colleagues. I did a music film for Cielo Hemon -the alter ego of Aleksandar Hemon known for “Nowhere Man” and “The Lazarus”Project”, also a co-writer of “The Matrix Resurrections” which was directed by the visual artist Šejla Kamerić. It will be screened at the Sarajevo Film Festival. I am currently working on a new interdisciplinary project taking shape between the cities of Gothenburg and Barcelona, in which I am collaborating with two capacious Barcelona based artists: drummer, percussionist Vasco Trilla & multi-instrumentalist/composer Alex Reviriego, organized by Folkstaden, ECRN and Urban Konst at Göteborg Konsthall in Gothenburg in collaboration and presented by Coincidences on a rooftop in Barcelona, on July 22. And then later in the fall I am in residency at KRAK, the cultural center in Bihać and extremely excited to be working in close proximity to Bosnian historian/curator Irfan Hošić. I also have a new project involving my sister Zana Messia as a composer and my mother Aida Mesihović as a dramaturg; I am telling a new “story”, related to my origin and ethnography of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in which I find so much richness, inspiration and material for my art praxis. I am especially curious about the possibilities of emerging technologies like augmented and virtual reality, projection mapping and contextual sensors, to express my ideas around expanded corporeality I work with & the movement methodology I have been developing for the past decade. I have an ongoing collaboration with Brooklyn based NEONEON, a team of experimental digital artists, Ray Weitzenberg and Andrey Radovski. They were involved with my recent project Sevdah body that takes various shapes and formats and is also an ongoing research which I was excited to present at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, right prior to the pandemic and the shutdown.
Find more about her work on her website and her Instagram account
Author: Hana Tiro
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