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Installation view – Distances We Carry, La Piscina – Artphilein Foundation, Lugano, CH, 2025
Photos: Vittoria Fragapane




Imagined Tongues















exhibited in 
Distances We Carry, Inside Artphilein (La Piscina), Paradiso-Lugano, CH, 2025Language plays a central role in Miljević‘s practice, as reflected in the recent series Imagined Tongues (2025), where the words LJUBAV (love), MIR (peace), and NADA (hope) are each repeated three times in Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. These terms are bleached into tightly woven, functional cotton fabric (EtaProof), originally developed in the 1930s for military use and produced in Switzerland since the late 1990s. Known for its use in military and outdoor gear due to its wind- and water-resistant properties, the fabric becomes a symbolic bearer of vulnerability, resistance and remembrance.

“By working with this material, designed to offer protection, and by using a corrosive agent, a subversive act takes place. I intervene in its surface, bleaching in words that are at risk of being lost, as though I am reaching through the material to recall something deeper.”

The Imagined Tongues series reflects on the role of language in shaping identity, solidarity, and belonging within the post-conflict landscape of the Balkans. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s concept of „imagined communities,“ Miljević explores how nations are continually shaped through language, shared cohabitation, and symbolic expression.

Imagined Tongues – Ljubav, 2025
Sodium hypochlorite on cotton fabric (EtaProof), mounted in steel frames
41.4 × 51.5 × 2.5 cm, framed (each)
Variation of 6 + 3 AP
Imagined Tongues – Mir, 2025
Sodium hypochlorite on cotton fabric (EtaProof), mounted in steel frames
41.4 × 51.5 × 2.5 cm, framed (each)
Variation of 6 + 3 AP
Installation view – Distances We Carry, La Piscina – Artphilein Foundation, Lugano, CH, 2025
Imagined Tongues – Nada, 2025
Sodium hypochlorite on cotton fabric (EtaProof), mounted in steel frames
41.4 × 51.5 × 2.5 cm, framed (each)
Variation of 6 + 3 AP
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