News

Šejla Kamerić is featured in the 17th Gjon Mili International Exhibition of Photography and Moving Image, She Who Starts the Song…, which opens on January 23rd at 7 p.m. at the National Gallery of Kosovo in Prishtina, Kosovo.

Curated by Valentine Umansky

The exhibition takes its inspiration from tepsijanje, a traditional musical practice rooted in Kosovo, performed largely by women. This unique form combines vocal melodies with the rhythmic spinning of a copper pan (tepsija). Here, tepsijanje becomes a metaphor for inherited gestures—passed from mother to daughter—that bridge generations with those of the past. Centred on an unnamed female singer, the exhibition explores gendered traditions and their ongoing subversion, examining photography, moving images, and sonic practices as powerful mediums and archives of intergenerational narratives.

The exhibition pays homage to filmmaker Trinh T. Minh-ha who, in Woman, Native, Other, described the diseuse —the storyteller, thought-woman, griotte, and fortune-teller—as someone whose truths unfold in time. “If you have the patience to listen, she will take delight in relating it to you.” The works in She who starts the song… embody these archetypes, inviting audiences to engage with the ancestral stories shared by grandmothers.

She who starts the song… features works by 23 artists, predominantly from the Balkans, selected through an open call.