Margareta Kern (b 1974, Croatia/Bosnia-Herzegovina) is a London based artist using photography, video and performance to tease out connecting threads between people’s personal spaces, narratives and socio-political forces.
A graduate of Goldsmiths College (BA Fine Art, 1998), and University College London (MA Anthropology/South East European Studies, 2010) her work has been shown extensively including Impressions Gallery, Tate Modern, Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts, HDLU - PM Gallery and Margaret Harvey Gallery. In 2008 and 2009, her solo exhibition Clothes for Living & Dying toured to Croatia, Germany and the UK. Her projects have received support from the British Film Institute, the Arts Council England, and Croatian Ministry of Culture. In 2003 Kern curated an exhibition project Leave to Remain on displacement and exile which was shown across venues in London, including the BBC. She was awarded a photography bursary in 2008 by the National Media Museum, Bradford, and in 2009 she was an artist-in-residence in Berlin funded by the British Council. Recently she presented at the Tate Britain symposium 28th State: European Borders in an age of Anxiety.
Pippa Oldfield, the curator at Impressions Gallery, selected Margareta Kern as the Axis on Axis website for contemporary arts. "As a photography curator, I am particularly fascinated by her exploration of the relationship between cloth, memory and photography..." continue rading on Axis website.
"The exhibition “Clothes for Living & Dying” is a work of a young woman, from Banja Luka, who in 1992, without having her own graduation, fleeing the war, immigrated to the United Kingdom. She stayed there, finished her education and formed views on the world, and her own identity.
But, as a person can’t become something else, without ceasing to be what they already are; in other words, it’s impossible to erase identities, instead one can layer them one on top of the other, in the way the women layer their clothes for death. In that same way, Margareta Kern, by being in her mother’s tailoring salon, and photographing in the Banjaluka homes, has done a very important self-reflective act. The imitation of life, which she captured through the graduation dresses, is in fact, in the broadest possible way, an imitation of an identity. One cannot get rid of an identity, no matter how much one wanted, no matter how much one didn’t need it anymore and no matter how much it seemed like an imitation."
By Miljenko Jergovic for Jutarnji List, Croatia, 29.05.2008 to continue reading in English click here, in Croatian click here.
PUBLICATIONS
2008: "Clothes for Living & Dying" catalogue, published by the University of Hertfordshire, with essays by Pennina Barnett, Dr Alex Rotas, Matthew Shaul and Margareta Kern.
Catalogue available from UH Galleries, T: 01707 284290, from Amazon, or by contacting the artist directly.
2008: Making Sense of Death, Dying and Bereavement: An Anthology Published in association with The Open University, by Bartholomew, Earle and Komaromy
2007; 'What Remains' by Margareta Kern, published on the Refugee Week Blog
2005; Necessary Journeys Publication, published by the Arts Council England and Tate Modern, edited by Melanie Keen and Eileen Daly
REVIEWS/ARTICLES selection
2009: Sasijmo bijelu kocku/Let's saw a white cube, by Ivana Podnar for Vijenac, Croatia, Feb '09
2009: Dress Rehearsal: Margareta Kern's Clothes for Living & Dying, by Liz Hoggard, Selvedge Magazine, March/April '09
2009: Dressing up for life's journey, by Emma Clayton, Argus & Telegraph Bradford, Feb '09
2008: Female Jesus of the photographer Margareta Kern, exhibition review by Miljenko Jergovic, Jutarnji List, Zagreb 29.05.08 English/ Croatian
2008: Pola Ure Kulture/Half Hour of Culture, Croatian TV/HTV, May 08.
2008: Review of Odavde/from here/Otuda/from there, for River Front Times, St Louis, Feb '08
2008: Cry me cats and dogs, a review by Alex Rotas of the Performing Rights Glasgow on Axis .
2008: Raimi Gbadamosi interviews Margareta Kern & Grace Ndiritu for Axis Dialogue
2007; The Big Issue, Review of Clothes for Death by Sarah Jane Downing
2007; ArtRabbit interview by Beth Greenacre
2007; a-n Magazine, July 2007 edition, Projects Unlimited, Clothes for Death
2006; The Guide, Exhibition preview and Critics Choice, The Guardian
2005; Time Out, Action Heroes, Election 2005 Reporter
2004; Third Text, Alex Rotas, Vol. 18, Issue 1, p51-60
RESIDENCIES
2009: Milchhoff Studios, Berlin, funded by the British Council (February and March 2009)
2008: Back to Heritage – Utopian Island, Zadar, Croatia (June 2008)
AWARDS
2009: The British Council Residency in Berlin
2008/09: The National Media Museum Photography Bursary, Bradford, UK
2008: The British Council, Croatian Ministry of Culture and City of Zagreb Artist Grant, Arts Council England and the University of Hertfordshire Galleries - for the solo touring exhibition ‘Clothes for Living & Dying’
2006/07: Research & Development Award ‘Clothes for Death’, Arts Council England
2005: Travel bursary ‘Necessary Journeys’, Arts Council England and the British Film Institute
2005: Individual Artist Award, project “Kolachnikov”, Arts Council England
1995 - 1998: Recipient of the Open Society Institute scholarship
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