Passages

Helena Klakočar Vukščič, born in 1958, spent her childhood years in the multi-cultural harmony of the Bosnian town of Tuzla. She spent her teenage years in Maribor, and later attended the Academies of Fine Arts in Zagreb and Tilburg. Helena Klakočar is a versatile artist (painter, maker of animated films, comics and illustrations) who is very good at graphic storytelling. In the late 70s, she began publishing her illustrations in Zagreb's Tina and Maribor's Katedra magazines. In the early 80s, she published her first comic in Zagreb's Polet and Heroina, and in the Belgrade magazine Vidici. In 1988, Mladina magazine published her series of comics entitled Take Your Time. As the founding member of the Zagreb artistic group ZZOT, which united comic, film and graphic artists, she has executed many posters, illustrations and murals since the early 80's. She has also made three animated films, which complement her artistic opus. In 1990, Helena Klakočar manged the ESCE art gallery with a group of Croatian alternative artists. Her first comic book, "Passage en douce", published by Freon in Brussels in cooperation with L' Atelier d' édition, won her the Alph Art, a prize for the best French translated album by a foreign artist, at this year's comic festival in the French city of Angoulême. The story in the book is in fact from a collection of Helena's diary notes. The diary notes were made at the end of 1991, during her familiy's voyage on the Mediterranean Sea from which they could not return home because a war broke out in the former Yugoslavia. An otherwise autobiographical story is amplified with the theme of exile, and that of one's relationship to art, money and politics. As a guest at the City of Women festival, Helena Klakočar will visit Ljubljana in October. This will also provide an opportunity for us to see on display the original matrix of "Passage en douce", and take part in comic workshops where Helena will present her approach to making comics. (IP)

Organised by: City of Women
Project coordinator: Igor Prassel
In cooperation with Mednarodni grafični likovni center - MGLC