The catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition INBETWEENESS held at San Michele former prison at Ripa (Rome) from 22 May to 15 June 2007. This exhibition wants to give you an idea of the situation experienced by recent generations of artists in the Balkan regions; we have called it Inbetweeness. This word represents a condition of perennial transit, an undefined identity in continuous movement from one place to another, in different time frames and different spaces, often in contradiction to each other. This ongoing condition of transience is something that the artists have experienced in person. It has prompted them to abandon their millenary traditions in order to embrace more modern forms of expression, such as the installation, photography, video, or the Net, all of which are instruments that can express pressing needs which could no longer be conveyed by the static nature of a painting or sculpture. The Balkans are a border region that has represented the meeting of East and West for centuries, all too often in the form of bloody conflicts. Today, in the era of globalisation, the Balkans actually stand for change and the definition of an ideal territory in which these two worlds can live in peace. For this reason the San Michele a Ripa former prison complex is the ideal venue for expressing this change. And so the works of the twenty-four exhibiting artists, symbolically placed inside the cells, form a melting pot of ideas, concepts, messages, and declarations that are able to annul the physical and symbolic confines of their space in order to create a new territory, one in which art can be freely expressed.

Essays are edited by Dobrila Denegri and Ludovico Pratesi.

Artists: Maja Bajeviç, Maja Beganoviç, Pavel Braila, Mircea Cantor e Gabriela Vanga, Nemanja Cvijanoviç, Nezaket Ekici, Nicu Ilfoveanu, Pravdoljub Ivanov, Šejla Kameriç, Daniela Kostova, David Maljkoviç, Ebru Özseçen, Adrian Paci, Tobijas Putrih, Anri Sala, son:DA, Miça Stajãiç, Erzen Shkololli, Jelena Tomaševiç, Slavica Toševska, Nikola Uzunovski, Vesna Vesiç, Natalija Vujoševiç