Jasmina Tumbas

PhD

Photo of Jasmina Tumbas.

Jasmina Tumbas

PhD

Jasmina Tumbas

PhD

Interests

Feminist histories and theories of performance, body and conceptual art; art and activism; politics of contemporary visual culture; socialist film; gender and sexuality in Eastern Europe after WWII (with an emphasis on former Yugoslavia); contemporary activist art practices by ethnic Roma in the Balkan region

I look at how diverse forms of gender representations in advertisements, art, film, photography, music videos and protests are mobilized politically.

Education

  • PhD, Duke University, 2013 
  • MA, Savannah College of Art and Design, 2006

Selected Awards and Fellowships

  • 2023 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, for Queer and Feminist Yugoslav Diaspora: Art of Resistance Beyond Nationhood (in progress)
  • 2024 Getty Residential Scholar
  • 2023 Gender Institute, Faculty Research Grant, UB
  • 2023: HI Fund for Conferences & Symposia, UB, for Queer and Feminist Yugoslav Diaspora: Art, Film, and Activism, April 24-27, 2023
  • 2023 OIE Global Research Scholar in Residence Grant, UB
  • 2018 Fellowship at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität (LMU), Munich, Germany
  • 2017 Humanities Institute Faculty Fellowship, Humanities Institute, UB
  • 2015 OVPRED/HI Seed Money in the Arts and Humanities fund, UB

Books

Selected Publications

  • “Big Time Sensuality: Tanja Ostojić’s Immersive Feminism,” in Tanja Ostojić: Women’s Health, Body Politics, Labour, Sexuality, Wellbeing, Menopause, Ageing and Agency (Contemporary Art Gallery, Subotica, Serbia, October 2024): Translated into: Serbian and Hungarian. Full catalogue here: http://www.seecult.org/sites/default/files/attachments/tanja-ostojic-sgs_katalog.pdf
  • “Motherhood, Carnal Lust, and Spellbinding Redemption in Šejla Kamerić’s Feminist Self-Portraits.” In Šejla Kamerić: EYE (Mother is a Bitch) (Berlin: DISTANZ Verlag GmbH, 2023), 7-11: https://www.distanz.de/en/sejla-kameric/mother-is-a-bitch
  • "Formidable Monstrosity: Feminist Art in the Yugoslav Diaspora Today," in Vogue Adria, no. 1 (2024) 
  •  "The Complicated Position of Ethnic Roma in Art and Culture Today," in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 86, no. 1 (2023), 2-14. https://doi.org/10.1515/ZKG-2023-1003 
  • “The Return of Jugoslovenka: An Unrequited Love Affair,” in Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies (Fall 2020), 1-34.
  • “Jasmila Zbanic: Quo Vadis, Aida?,” in Art Monthly no. 442 (December 2020 - January 2021), 38-39.  
  • “Solo and Ensemble,” in Art in America vol. 108, Issue 3 (March 2020): 60-65
  •  Guest Editor, ArtLeaks Gazette #5: Patriarchy Over & Out. Discourse Made Manifest (April 2019): https://art-leaks.org/artleaks-gazette/
  • "We Protest Artvoice: A Platform for Carl Paladino's Hateful Speech," co-authored with Divya Victor, Joshua Lam, and Mickey Harmon, in ArtLeaks Gazette #5: Patriarchy Over & Out. Discourse Made Manifest (April 2019): 44-46. https://art-leaks.org/artleaks-gazette/
  • “Yugonostalgia,” Feature essay in Art Monthly no. 425 (April 2019): 6-10:  https://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/issue/april-2019
  • “Classroom in Crisis: Global Perspectives,” in Making Another World Possible - 10 Creative Time Summits, 10 Global Issues, 100 Art Projects (Routledge, 2019), 315-317.
  •  "Eine Frage der Entscheidung: Politische Performance Kunst im Sozialistischen Jugolslawien," in Adam Czirak (ed.), Aktionskunst jenseits des Eisernen Vorhangs Künstlerische Kritik in Zenten ploitischer Repression (transcript-Verlag, 2019): 199-299.
  • “Popular Demand: Yugoslav Socialist Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art,” in Art in America (December 2018): https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/popular-demand-yugoslav-socialist-architecture-museum-modern-art/
  • “Countering Persecution, Misconceptions, and Nationalism: Roma Identity and Contemporary Activist Art,” In Aneta Stojnic, Christel Stalpaert and Marina Grzinic, eds.,This Body is in Danger: Shift-shaping CorpoRealities in Contemporary Performing Arts (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 2018), 103-127.
  • “Decision as Art: Performance in the Balkans.” In Katalin Cseh-Varge and Adam Czirak, eds., Performing Arts in the Second Public Sphere (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 2018): 184-201.
  • “SHOOT THE WOMEN FIRST! Under the Pink of Navine G. Khan-Dossos’s Targets,” Feature Essay in ASAP Journal: The Open-Access Platform of ASAP/Journal (John Hopkins University Press): July 2018.
  • The Ectoplasmic Resistance of Queer: Metric Mysticism, Libidinal Art, and How to Think Beyond The Internet. A Conversation with Zach Blas.” Feature Interview in ASAP Journal: The Open-Access Platform of ASAP/Journal (John Hopkins University Press): Feb 2018.
  • Wanderlust, or How to Wander in and out of the Dark History of the Now: Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967-2017.” Feature Essay in ASAP Journal: The Open-Access Platform of ASAP/Journal (John Hopkins University Press) (December 2017)
  • “‘The Criticality of activism needs to be applied to art in order to reveal the perpetuation of false narratives': A Conversation with Jemima Wyman,” In Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 92, vol. 31, no. 2: (September 2016), 195-203.
  • “Selma Selman,” monographic essay for artist book and catalogue, Selma Selman: Visual Artist, edited by Štefan Simončič (Slovenia, EPEKA Scientific and Research Association: 2016), 6-24.
  • “Endre Tót and Conceptual Art, or the TÓTal JOY of Nothing.” In Art and Documentation/Sztuka i Dokumentacja, no. 10 (Spring 2014): 31-37.
  • “International Hungary! György Galántai's Networking Strategies." In Artists Networks in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Special Issue co-edited by Cristina Freire and Klara Kemp-Welch, ArtMargins 1, no. 2 (June-October 2012): 87-115.

Select Appearances

Curated Exhibitions

  • "Selma Selman: I exist," Dreamland Art Gallery, Buffalo (2016). The Exhibition travelled to 12-14 Contemporary gallery, Vienna, Austria.  
  • “Black in Time: A Historical Celebration of Buffalo's African American LGBTQ Bar and Party Scene,” co-curated with Ana Grujic in collaboration with the Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project. Co-sponsored by the Visual Studies Program at UB and the UB Gender Institute, at Sweets Lounge, Buffalo.

Affiliations

Interesting Fact

Before moving to Buffalo, Prof. Tumbas co-founded THE PUBLIC SCHOOL Durham in 2010, an independently operated learning community open to the public, where she taught a number of classes on East European film, queer cinema and contemporary art.