So, how to translate Zemljakinja? As a Scot, the notion of “the brotherhood of man” is familiar enough, being internationally associated with our national poet, Robert or “Rabbie” Burns. Yet, the feminine Zemljakinja? The “sisterhood of women”? In Tamara’s own words (I paraphrase), zemljakinja connotes something deeper than that: meaning compatriot or fellow countrywoman and distinctive to zemljanka (earthling), ‘you would use this word to regard someone coming from the same place (often in context of a village or nation), instantly presuming a sense of connection and trust in that person who would have been a stranger or “other” the moment prior.’ The exhibition title is a semantic inquiry: at its root is the word ‘zemlja’, in Serbian meaning Earth and simultaneously meaning ‘soil’ and ‘land’ - similar to the Latin ‘Terra’. Patriotism, according to James Boswell’s fellow traveller, Dr Samuel Johnson, was “the last refuge of a scoundrel”. However that may be, Zemljakinja connotes something more benign and wholesome than that, alluding to the common land of Earth that all Terrestrials share and belong to, in all our complex variety. Bridges and Rivers The imagery is largely of bridges: both bridges built and bridges broken. Bridges spanning gaps and crossing rivers, which may be taken both literally and metaphorically, reminding us of Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina and at the same time the metaphorical bridging of gaps between the arts and sciences, something of a cliché now, but still useful. Bridges in Tamara’s paintings are far more than mere archetypal symbols. For example, in the enigmatic image Perseverance, the bridge, stark and dominating the landscape, broken or incomplete, with attention to the construction of the decking, the roadway and its supports, suggests the questions: where have we come from, and where are we going: Quo vadimus? What is the way? The palette is diverse but harmonious, even restful, displaying blues, steely blues, and grey concrete and tarmac, but with a suggestion of living vegetation and its root systems underneath; the legend, “Life Will Persevere,” promising that nature will in time reclaim our passing monuments and constructions. Tamara draws on Tesla’s threefold list* “Food, Peace and Work”, recalling our own Patrick Geddes’s “Folk, Work, Place”. She also refers to “onward movement”, so well exemplified in a river, which (pace Heraclitus), paradoxically ever changes yet remains the same. She also describes her main method of working as “thinking through painting”, which resonates with Geddes’s use of the notion of a “thinking machine.” 8 Paintings, 9 Artworks Artwork no. 9 is the performance entitled “Momentum”, imagined as a key for unifying the 8 paintings on display. Tamara analyses, and then creates a performance based upon, Tesla’s interpretation of man “as a mass urged on by a force“ She physically guides and involves participants in a “collective thought experiment on togetherness“. The individuality of each painting is enhanced by the legends, which are spoken responses by participants and inscribed by Tamara in white chalk, and provide a participatory aspect echoing the fact that we must and we do all quest together. The major piece in Tamara’s exhibition is Cosmic Lecture 1, which calls forth her own artiscient research group in Scotland, Asteria Creative. Here, I see not just Mars, as mentioned in the text, – “On Mars We Will Learn about Peace, in Peace,”– but other worlds receding into the background; these not in the silent vacuum of space, but in a highly dynamic, energetic environment. Have our ventures into outer space; has the image of “Space Ship Earth”,** taught us to recognise our common humanity? Or, are we simply and tragically transporting our human failings to the Moon, to Mars and beyond? The Arts and Science of Peace In agreeing to write this introduction to the work of Tamara Rogović, I wished, personally, not only to recall mutual historical relations between Scotland and Serbia, but also to find some personal connections, and as we talked in recent days, they flooded in: the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and Elsie Inglis, a mission in which two of my great aunts participated, although in France rather than in Serbia; another great aunt’s visiting Istanbul, Greece and Yugoslavia in 1936; the almost legendary work in Central Europe, from the Baltics to the Balkans, of Richard Demarco, with whom I have collaborated since the 1990s, and in ongoing events at our precious venue, Summerhall, in Edinburgh.*** In 1999, Demarco and I mounted a conference on “The Arts and Science of Peace and the Prevention of Conflict”. Twenty years later, Tamara and I first met in 2019, but her having recently graduated from Edinburgh College of Art, we have engaged much more strongly in recent weeks for which I am profoundly happy. I hope that in future we might take up once again, some of the topics and purposes which I have mentioned here. In conclusion, with what questions does Tamara’s exhibition Zemljakinja confront us? They are important questions, deep and most pressing questions in today’s unsteady world. What connects us, one person to another, one people to another? What can lead us to trust one another, without which peace is unachieved? Enjoy the exhibition. It is, indeed, a “thinking machine.” Colin Sanderson