Dust Bunny is the result of the artist’s period of residency at Project space and centers around the idea that dust bunnies—those bothersome balls of dust composed mainly of dead human skin cells—can be interpreted as traces of life and memories of our daily lives. This unusual and provocative perspective invites us to reflect on the possibility that what we commonly consider waste may hold fragments of our experiences instead.
Usually perceived as elements that emphasize a home’s untidiness and destined to be swept away, viewed more closely, dust bunnies hide a deeper dimension. They are repositories of subtle memories and silent traces of our presence. Through more conscious analysis, we can discover the hidden stories they contain, invisible fragments of our daily lives.
Their formation testifies to what Donna Haraway describes as “artifactual nature”: a complex intertwining of organic and inorganic matter. Their existence is intrinsically tied to human activities. They are silent products of our daily interactions, witnesses to the coexistence of the body with its surrounding environment. Itching and all our other neurotic gestures stimulate their growth.
Adelisa Selimbašić’s painting draws on this reflection, inserting itself in a long artistic tradition rooted in the culture of imagery and symbolic or votive representation of the human body. Her work recalls and subverts the ideal imagery of beauty in which the harmony of proportion and posture reflects not only aesthetic perfection but also social hierarchies and psychological characteristics. The representation of the body seems to emerge as a manifestation of divine perfection, a symbol of virtue offered to the gaze, the idealized nudity conceived by men.
Her often dense and vibrant painted surfaces transform colour into a primary expressive medium in which shades of reality are observed, amplified, and reinterpreted. Her precise yet fluid brushstrokes create a plasticity that makes the female body almost tangible and prompts the viewer to a tactile perception of skin and body. Through her painterly gestures, Selimbašić does not merely represent, she invites us to explore the relationship between body and space, suggesting a visual narrative that develops between the real and the surreal in which each figure dissolves and re-emerges in a new emotional dimension.
As part of our “neglected life”, dust bunnies become bearers of a broader reflection on the human and social condition. Easily recognizable by anyone, they seem to particularly concern only a group of historically marginalized and invisible people, and this raises issues in both the socio-political and aesthetic spheres.
Michele Spinelli
