Shifting Shelter

Mixed media, site-specific installation, 2017

5th Floor Sitting Area

Vessna Perunovich's installation incorporates pieces of household furniture (a chair, a small table, a mirror, a table lamp, a coat hanger) and personal items (shoes, a suitcase, a book). The objects are connected to suggest both mobility and stillness. The accompanying video, Unoccupied NY follows the artist through different parts of New York City as she carries a mattress on her back. Perunovich’s work speaks to issues of migration, longing and boundaries.

Unoccupied New York

Video, 4 mins. 58 secs., 2017

5th Floor Sitting Area

About the artist

Vessna Perunovich is a Toronto-based artist, born in 1960 in Zaječar, Serbia, in the former Yugoslavia. Her family immigrated to Toronto in 1988. She earned her B.F.A in 1984 at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Three years later she earned her M.F.A. also from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Belgrade. In 1999, she participated as a guest lecturer at the Dundas School of Art in Hamilton, Ontario, titled "Naked/Perpetual Crises I". In 2004, she was invited to the University of Guelph in Ontario to guest lecture. In the same year, she was also invited by the Informal Architectures Symposium in Banff, Alberta as a guest lecturer. Since 2005 she has been a sessional teacher at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. 

CAFKA @ The Walper 2019 has been made possible with the support of the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund and the Walper Hotel.