Neja Tomšič (1982) is a visual artist, poet, and writer whose interdisciplinary practice merges drawing, photography, poetry, and performance. By uncovering overlooked and often hidden stories from history, she aims to rethink dominant historical narratives, research into particularities, and create situations where new understandings of the present can be formed. She approaches histories as maps of starting points and links. Performative elements in her projects explore possible projections of history into the subjective present of individual visitors.
Her project Tea for Five: Opium Clippers, a performative essay in the form of a Chinese tea ceremony, has toured 11 countries and was performed more than 55 times. Her artist book Opium Clippers was awarded as best Slovenian artist book in 2017/2018 and the best book design in the category Book as Object at the Slovenian Book Fair. She is a member a Nonument Group, an art collective that maps, archives and intervenes in forgotten, abandoned or demolished 20th century monuments, public spaces and buildings, that have undergone a change in meaning.
Neja also works as a curator and producer and is a co-founder of MoTA (Museum of Transitory Art), a Ljubljana-based research and production platform devoted to transitory art. She lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Image 1: Tea for Five: Opium Clippers, Glej Theatre, September 2018, photo: Jaka Babnik
Image 2: Tea for Five: Opium Clippers, Azores Fringe Festival, Pico Island, July 2018, photo: Neja Tomšič
Image 3: Opium Clippers artist book, photo: Jaka Babnik
Image 4: Nonument Group: From Nowhere to Noplace, The Pioneer Railway, May 2019, photo DK
