Marija Đondović

Over the course of ten years, this long-term project builds an intimate visual archive of my family, spanning from Vienna to the Balkans. The images are captured from my mother’s perspective, documenting the evolution of our family structure.

The children are at the center of the work: their physicality, honesty, and unpredictability shape the visual language. From this starting point, a network of relationships, generations, and cultural practices unfolds, within which questions of origin and identity are explored. The photographs depict everyday life, shared rituals, travel, and intimacy. Migration emerges as a theme of both expansion and simultaneous rootedness in multiple cultural spaces. Unstaged everyday life is documented using analog cameras; this strategy challenges idealized portrayals of the family and depicts it as a living organism and a place where identity is formed.

Biography

Marija Đondović, b. 1988 in Belgrade (RS); has lived and worked in Vienna (AT) since 2000. Đondović graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven and completed her studies in photography and time-based media at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She works as a photographer, director, and art director, and in this capacity she carries out international photography and film projects.