Document Missing: Performance no. 6 (Daughter) – Hristina Ivanoska

Rosa Plaveva – who, you ask? – should be remembered, but isn’t. The Macedonian pendant to Rosa Luxemburg, Plaveva spent decades fighting for the rights of women and workers. Born in 1878 in Veles, she died in 1970 in Belgrade, yet the story of political resistance that unfolded between those two dates has been largely erased and forgotten.

Can Plaveva be revived as a historical figure? Can she regain her voice? Can any truth be gleaned from the fragments? Such questions form the basis of Hristina Ivanoska’s long-term research project Document Missing: The Intricate Sense of Truth in Oral Histories, which began in 2014.

Adopting the persona of Plaveva, the artist recreates situations and documents “that were and were not” in performances, photography, objects, textile works, drawings, and typographies.

Whereas Ivanoska’s installation reflects on the vulnerabilities of research in the absence of material evidence, her performance presents a case in point: the story behind the political persecution of Plaveva’s daughter, Nadezhda.

Watch Hristina Ivanoska perform Document Missing: Performance no. 6 (Daughter) at the National Library of Kosovo from 21.00-21.45 on Saturday the 23rd of July.