Born in the former Yugoslavia, Berlin-based artist Aleksandra Domanović (b. 1981) has been exploring history, technology, and identity in her body of work for over a decade. Her work takes an insightful look at a wide range of phenomena of contemporary society, such as cultural techniques, scientific and technological developments, history and culture, popular culture, and the shaping of national and cultural identity. Domanović’s works are precisely conceived narratives, visualized using iconic images or illustrations taken from other contexts.
Building on the notion that Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer and that the history of computing is intrinsically feminist, her sculptures and videos expand the scope of conventional technological history by illuminating feminist, cyberfeminist, and Eastern European contributions to the development of science and Internet. A crucial element of her videos, prints and modelled sculptures is the hand, which is a reference to the 1963 Belgrade Hand, a fundamental development in the history of controllable prosthetics. Moreover, the hand also is an allusion to the early 1990s cyberfeminism, which was invested in the notion of the cyborg as a utopian feminist figure.
Domanović has had major solo exhibitions at Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan (2019), MoCA Cleveland (2018) and Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2017) just to name a few. Her work has also been included in several international biennials including the VAC Foundation exhibition at the 58th Venice Biennial (2019), the Belgrade Biennial (2018), Manifesta 11 in Zurich (2016), the New Museum Triennial (2015) and Shanghai Biennale (2014). Furthermore, in 2018 she was awarded the 5th Arnaldo Pomodoro Sculpture Prize, Milan.