Preliminary communication

https://doi.org/10.31664/zu.2025.116.08

Petrocontemporary Assemblages: On Plastics in Jelena Micić’s Artworks

Andrija Filipović ; Fakultet za medije i komunikacije, Beograd, Srbija

Abstract

Grounded in a critical assemblage analysis informed by the study of oil cultures, this article examines the use of plastics in Jelena Micić’s works. By incorporating nylon sheets and single-use plastics into their assemblages, Micić’s artworks highlight a sociopolitical and environmental shift from socialist petromodernity to postsocialist petrocontemporaneity. The relational complexity of historical processes and socioeconomic practices centered on the extraction and exploitation of fossil fuels, entangling (non-)living bodies, (in-)organic matter, and more-than-human environments, emerges as a defining material-semiotic feature of postsocialist petrocontemporaneity. Micić’s practice, therefore, calls for a re-reading of local and regional art and social histories through the lens of oil cultures, attentive to the defining role of oil in shaping modern and contemporary cultures worldwide.

Keywords

assemblage; oil cultures; petrocontemporaneity; petromodernity; plastics

Hrčak ID:

350182

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/350182

Publication date:

1.7.2025.

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