Jasmina Tumbas

PhD

Photo of Jasmina Tumbas.

Jasmina Tumbas

PhD

Jasmina Tumbas

PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Global Gender and Sexuality Studies
College of Arts and Sciences

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

Books

  • "I Am Jugoslovenka!” Feminist Performance Politics During & After Yugoslav Socialism (Manchester University Press, 2022) https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526169044/i-am-jugoslovenka/ 
  • Queer and Feminist Yugoslav Diaspora: Art of Resistance Beyond Nationhood (in progress)
  • Editor and Translator, What Remains: Fragments of a Continuous Past, Artist Book, Marika Schmiedt, Vienna: ARTBRUT, 2014
  • Editor and Translator, “Thoughts Are Free” Anxiety is Reality for Roma in Europe, Artist Book, Marika Schmiedt, Vienna: ARTBRUT, 2013
  • English Language Editor, ARTPOOL - The Experimental Art Archive of East-Central Europe History of an active archive for producing, networking, curating, and researching art since 1970, by György Galántai and Julia Klaniczay, Budapest: Artpool, Erste Foundation, and National Cultural Fund Hungary, 2013

Selected Publications

  •  "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.