Tell Me the Story of Your Life Without Once Touching Mine
Art installation at Expo Osaka 2025
Introduction
Created for Expo 2025 Osaka in response to the theme Connecting Lives, Tell Me the Story of Your Life Without Once Touching Mine, invited visitors to cross the threshold from observer to co-creator of a living work of art.
The installation transformed a landscaped bench outside the Serbian Pavilion into a shared canvas where stories, imagination, and nature intertwined.
Background
Born in Yugoslavia and shaped by the war and the breakup of my country, I began a nomadic journey that has lasted more than three decades. Since then, movement, uncertainty, reinvention, and transformation have become the terrain from which I work.
In today’s increasingly divided world, remembering this interconnectedness feels more urgent than ever—between people, cultures, and the natural world itself. That belief is at the heart of this installation.
Its title and spirit draw from a poem by Pavi Mehta, which reminds us that “there are no borders” and that “everything flows into everything else.” The work unfolded on a bench—a simple, universal place where people sit, pause, and connect. Here, the bench became a shared canvas where personal stories and imaginative gestures merged and flowed into one another.
In the spirit of Expo 2025’s theme Connecting Lives, and in line with my artistic practice of impermanence, flow, and co-creation, the installation asked:
What new worlds can we create together when we remember that there are no borders?
The Process
To explore that question, visitors were invited to inscribe their own stories—marking or drawing on the bench as a shared canvas. Each gesture met the traces left by others, weaving our contributions into an ever-changing whole while sun, wind, and rain added their own subtle presence.
I guided and curated these evolving layers, weaving them into an intricate tapestry of shapes and colours that represent our collective hopes and dreams for the future.
The Journey Continues
While the installation has come to a close, the questions that inspired it remain alive.
They continue to unfold through artistic practice, writing, experiences, and collaborations. If you would like to explore some of these questions further, you can find more on Substack.