Passages

Helena Klakočar Vukščič, born in 1958, spent her childhood years in the
multi-cultural harmony of the Bosnian town of Tuzla. She spent her teenage
years in Maribor, and later attended the Academies of Fine Arts in Zagreb and
Tilburg. Helena Klakočar is a versatile artist (painter, maker of animated
films, comics and illustrations) who is very good at graphic storytelling. In
the late 70s, she began publishing her illustrations in Zagreb's Tina
and Maribor's Katedra magazines. In the early 80s, she published her
first comic in Zagreb's Polet and Heroina, and in the Belgrade
magazine Vidici. In 1988, Mladina magazine published her series
of comics entitled Take Your Time. As the founding member of the Zagreb
artistic group ZZOT, which united comic, film and graphic artists, she has
executed many posters, illustrations and murals since the early 80's. She has
also made three animated films, which complement her artistic opus. In 1990,
Helena Klakočar manged the ESCE art gallery with a group of Croatian
alternative artists. Her first comic book, "Passage en douce",
published by Freon in Brussels in cooperation with L' Atelier d' édition, won
her the Alph Art, a prize for the best French translated album by a
foreign artist, at this year's comic festival in the French city of Angoulême.
The story in the book is in fact from a collection of Helena's diary notes. The
diary notes were made at the end of 1991, during her familiy's voyage on the
Mediterranean Sea from which they could not return home because a war broke out
in the former Yugoslavia. An otherwise autobiographical story is amplified with
the theme of exile, and that of one's relationship to art, money and politics.
As a guest at the City of Women festival, Helena Klakočar will visit Ljubljana
in October. This will also provide an opportunity for us to see on display the
original matrix of "Passage en douce", and take part in comic
workshops where Helena will present her approach to making comics. (IP)

Organised by: City of Women
Project coordinator: Igor Prassel
In cooperation with Mednarodni grafični likovni center - MGLC