Antrea Tzourovits starts from his personal story to address a collective history shaped by war, loss, and trauma. His childhood memories from former Yugoslavia, before moving to Greece during the 1999 conflict, are central to his work and always emerge in an enigmatic or humorous way. As a child, he experienced the celebrations of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s win of the 1998 FIBA Basketball World Championship, which was soon overshadowed by the NATO bombings in 1999 during the Kosovo War. His works explore the relationship between ‘play’ and ‘conflict’.

The new commission for space of togetherness investigates these traumatic memories. Τhe title You know you can see your nose all the time, but your brain decides to ignore it somehow alludes playfully to the painful facts that cannot be undone and the traumatic memories that last, defying our brain’s attempts to erase them. The work comprises a sound installation with recordings from the OAKA Stadium in Athens – where the 1998 FIBA Basketball World Championship took place – and a wall installation composed of reclaimed basketball court flooring. It is a site-specific work that takes us to a different environment, to a game that we cannot see, that is not there, that cannot happen. Exploring the intricacies and paradoxes of human experience, Antrea Tzourovits creates a platform to contemplate history and the persistence and elusiveness of memory and how it shapes reality.

Antrea Tzourovits (born 1987, Danilovgrad, Serbia and Montenegro) lives and works in London.