New Books Network Jonathan Blackwood and Jasmina Tumbas, "Contemporary Art in the Post-Yugoslav Space" (Routledge, 2025)
Mar 24, 2026
Jasmina Tumbas, Associate Professor studying queer and feminist interventions in contemporary art. Jonathan Blackwood, curator and writer focused on post-Yugoslav cultural ecologies. They explore hauntology and lingering Yugoslav legacies. Topics include archival recoveries, diaspora networks, precarious art economies, queer and feminist lineages, non-aligned cultural ties, and contested curatorial practices.
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Hauntology Reframes Nostalgia As Active Inheritance
- Hauntology reframes Yugoslav nostalgia as an active inheritance shaping present possibilities.
- Jonathan Blackwood draws on Mark Fisher to show ghosts are both lost potentials and future attractors that shape current practices.
Haunting Is Inheritance That Empowers Marginalized Voices
- Jasmina Tumbas uses Sara Ahmed to show haunting is an inheritance that burdens and empowers marginalized cultural workers.
- She argues labeling Yugoslav attachments as 'nostalgia' often dismisses feminist, queer, and decolonial legacies as pathology.
Artist Precarity Traces Back To Late Socialist Neoliberal Shifts
- Contemporary artists in post-Yugoslav states work under entrenched precarity rooted in late-socialist neoliberal shifts.
- Katja Prasnik's essay traces low artist pay back to 1970s–80s IMF-era policies and the emergence of neoliberal structures.
