Selma Selman is Tito

Selma Selman
Selma Selman is Tito
Photography
2019

In her book “I Am Jugoslovenka!” (2022), theorist Jasmina Tumbas writes that Selma Selman’s works “often thematize the position of being Roma in the post-Yugoslavian context. The legal rights for Roma worsened significantly after socialism and with the rise of neoliberal capitalism, especially for Selman’s community in Ružica, where Tito’s era of Socialism is remembered as a time ‘when everything was perfect’. (…) Selma Selman has used her art and her international connections to help her village and to raise funds for girls to go to school, a philanthropic engagement that has inspired young children to scream ‘Tito! Tito!’ when they see her. She now drives a van with the words ‘Selma Selman je Tito’ (‘Selma Selman is Tito’) painted on them. She explained, ‘Everybody here looks at me as Tito, because I bring them happiness’.”