Petra Matić is an artist, curator, and activist committed to cultural transformation, social justice, and anti-colonial practices. As the founder and director of Jutro, she integrates contemporary art with human rights advocacy, with a special focus on building the Non-Aligned Archive to amplify Global South narratives.
Her work exists between worlds – between histories, geographies, and identities that resist categorization. She sees her practice as a form of cultural archaeology, uncovering forgotten narratives, suppressed voices, and the tensions between memory and erasure. Working across film, installation, and collective projects, Matić constructs spaces where the past and future collide.
At its core, her work is an act of resistance against forgetting. She draws deeply from the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement and its intersections with post-coloniality, justice, and solidarity. While Petra Matić’s practice is rooted in history, it is equally about imagining new futures. Rather than providing answers, she creates spaces where questions can resonate: where the ghosts of the past, the urgencies of the present, and the possibilities of the future exist in dialogue.
Visit Petra Matić’s website here
May 2025 – joining the Dwell Here Research Intensive Week from 14 – 20 May 2025
Research Focus
Petra Matić will use her residency to explore the intersections of transnational solidarities between Ireland and Yugoslavia during the 20th century, with a focus on Global Majority communities. Building on her work with the Non Aligned Archive, which documents the African, Asian, and American presence in Yugoslavia during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), her time will be spent addressing research to expand the archive to explore Ireland’s historical connections with the Global Majority.
Dwell Here offers participants a simple proposition: to commit to this time and place while thinking deeply about its urgencies. Together we are curious to learn what can be activated or challenged through the process of dwelling. IMMA encourages reflection across the following themes to consider geographical, historical, political and cultural concepts of Ireland as a starting point to expand and connect international contexts through similarities and differences:
Technologies of Peace – to consider commemorative landscapes and memories of peace (as a dream, movement, or value) while generating perspectives on sustainable coexistence.
The Irish Paradigm – Welcomes artistic research that creates intimacy and connections, while celebrating the perceived agility and freedoms of operating on the periphery. As a small island on the edge of Europe, Ireland often has a challenging relationship with ‘the centre’.
The Museum as a Site of Vibration – consider how the museum and site can create new vibrations and rhythms within the built legacy of empire. How can museums make visible cultural shifts, including erased, censored or marginalised histories, as well as sustainability, planetary care, sharing and hospitality.