Made to See

Aida Hasanovic
May – June 2021

“I became a refugee when my family and I—together with 70,000 migrants of the Bosnian Genocide—moved to the middle of America. As Bosnian-Americans we had to negotiate ourselves against the constructed notions of government, race, religion, and gender in both countries. These constructed and coercive notions create oppressive environments meant to fracture and separate; still we have the power to find our way back to one another. By using both English and Bosnian, Made to See carries both languages to the center to challenge and resist hegemonic beliefs around speech and identity.”

Made to See is the second of three installations as part of the Stories of Resistance exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, which explores artistic forms of resistance from across the world. Through visual narratives, artists amplify and bring to focus the multitude of conditions that ignite and inspire people to resist. The exhibition activates the entire museum space, inside and out, with video, photography, drawing, sculpture, painting, and installation.