#Katja Vujić | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

byopposing-endthem · 6 years ago

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Seeking Stillness

The bigger part of the painting depicts what looks like an iceberg, or a map, or a rock. The smaller part could be some hills and grass, or an island, or a telephone pole. Maybe a dinosaur. Looking at it is like looking at the clouds: possibility passing by, urging you to look longer and think harder. Its title is A Story. The background is the sort of white-grey haze that obscures the plot in a mystery novel. It’s patchy, and there’s a lot of empty space and indistinct shapes, like a book with an ambiguous ending. Both halves seem divergent, but they share a streak of bruise-blue here and there, and the same imagination-stirring style. Admittedly, it’s the sort of piece I would usually look at briefly before snapping a photo.Katja Vujićstood in front of it like it really was a novel, like she couldn’t put it down. It made me look closer too.

A Storyis part of a larger exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts called Seeking Stillnessthat displays the works of various artists. The instillations included are meant to encourage introspection, contemplation, and meditation. Seeing Katja walk through the space, drifting past sculptures and pausing in front of paintings, she struck me as belonging. Her hair was damp from the drizzly walk to the museum, and its wispiness reminded me of sweeping lines of ink. She held her coat, which was grey and textured like Conjunction 15-214, a piece painted on burlap. She excitedly introduced her favorite works, and we’d talk about them; she listening to my stuttering comments with patient focus. Or I would turn around and she would be across the gallery, her footsteps obscured by the piano music flowing from above. Listening to Katja speak and seeing her internalize the art in front of her emphasized the thought that she seems to apply to each aspect of her life.

Sharing a conversation – or even a college course – with Katja involves an intimidating level of insight coupled with a comforting sense of searching for the right words. She is extremely articulate, but often interrupts herself with clarifications, hesitations, and self-deprecations. She tends to needlessly apologizes at the end of her sentences. Sometimes she cuts her words off with a laugh. She strongly values the education she has received, but in a non-academic setting, she is just as likely to joke around as name drop Aimé Césaire. The comments she makes in class are always pointed and focused; the comments that she makes about her thoughts and beliefs are made with equal care, but interspersed with goofy little anecdotes and actions. In the Mark Rothko: Reflection exhibition, she noted the use of similar shades that could only be distinguished by staring. This reminded her of a scene from a Mary Kate and Ashley movie, which she then acted out in the middle of the gallery, complete with an impersonation of a wise French boy who told them that they had to really look at art to appreciate it.

Her room smells like lemongrass; the culprit is a cute little diffuser puffing away in the corner. There’s a charming display of mismatched mugs and wooden spoons carefully arranged by the sink. There’s a printed pillow on the dorm-regulation arm chair, and colorful souvenir magnets decorating the fridge. The coffee table has a silver magazine tray in the corner. Even the view of Boston Common looks like it was projected on a green screen in order to perfect the ambience of the place. It reminds me of a spread in a Pottery Barn Teen catalogue, except for the handle of vodka nestled by the spoons, or the tapestry depicting the Great Wave off Kanagawa made up of tiny pugs next to the fridge. Katja is like that too. She reminds me of a model, tall and slim. Her dark hair is stylish, cut with blunt bangs; her clear-framed glasses are chic. But she fidgets endearingly while she thinks; she tugs on the hoops in her ears, twists the rings on her fingers, and nudges the magazine tray with the toe of her black Converse.

Katja was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and moved to Nashville, Tennessee, when she was about seven months old. She has one sibling, a sister named Stella, who’s four years younger. Stella, who is now eighteen, feels as though she is closer to Katja than she is to their parents in some respects. Katja is the one who toured colleges with her, not their parents. They were raised to be both sisters and friends, but they continue to be close because of their actions now. According to her sister, Katja has always put her best effort into maintaining relationships with those she loves. She always finds time to talk on the phone, and when Stella visited in order to tour colleges on the East Coast, Katja went with her and showed her around despite having class.

Katja seems to put people first in both action and thought. Her political and societal opinions prioritize empathy, liberation, and equality. She supports liberalism, but only to an extent – “I also have a problem with liberal politics in that a lot of liberals are like, ‘yeah, I’m a liberal, so I can’t do anything wrong,’” she explains. Standing in front of a Rothko painting that features a rough rectangle of scarlet pigment, she expressed disbelief that some pro-gun advocates could value their “fun hobby” over the lives of other human beings. Her time at Emerson College, an overwhelmingly liberal school, has only made her more “politically correct,” in the words of her sister. It has also been the cause of some of their squabbles. Katja will get annoyed at Stella for phrasing something in a more potentially offensive way than someone at Emerson might. In turn, Stella is annoyed by Katja’s inherent hatred of Republicans, whether or not they voted for Trump. Katja finds political beliefs to be inseparable from moral identity, and refuses to excuse them.

Katja told me that she thrives on the exchange of love. She knows that Valentine’s Day is a corporate invention, but is fond of it because she can dedicate it to expressing her love for her friends and family. Stella notes, “She has a really large capacity to love. It makes her a great friend, but can hurt her in some ways, like when her friends don’t necessarily return that love.” Much of the walk to the MFA was spent wandering in the right general direction, ignoring Google Maps for the sake of conversation. Katja had mentioned before that she had a lot of friendships that ended without her wanting them to. Friends would make excuses, or stop answering her messages, and she’d “wake up one morning” and realize they could no longer be considered friends. As much as she tries to appreciate the time she’s had with people and accept that it’s over, she still wants to figure out why people care less than she does so she can “fix it.” As much as she values friendship, she spends a lot of time alone. She isn’t always lonely, but admits that she doesn’t really have friends in Boston anymore. She mentioned Akosa Ibekwe, one of her closest friends, who recently returned to Los Angeles after graduating from Northeastern. She spent much of the last year spending time with him exclusively. “We’re both very private people who spend most of our free time alone,” he told me, “and it wasn’t long before we started spending most of our alone time together.”

Akosa says that she’s “very friendly, but difficult to get close to.” Stella considers herself to be a more open person than her sister. “I definitely know a lot about her,” she says, “but usually it takes more prodding from my side.” When we were speaking, she seemed to hit boundaries in what she felt comfortable sharing. When I asked her about school, she said vaguely that it was “a really difficult experience” to be able to attend Emerson. Stella, on the other hand, freely explained that that their parents – and especially their father – were against Katja moving out of state for college.

Katja did mention her father at other points; he’s a controlling man who she describes as “very against emotion.” She grew up not being able to express any strong feelings, even excitement, without upsetting him. Being away from home, she appreciates the freedom to openly feel the way that she does. She says that she feels emotions strongly. She gets angry often but it burns out quickly. She has learned to compartmentalize so that she can sometimes be happy. Her outlook fluctuates between “sad and fatalistic” and moments of hope or feeling at peace, which usually come when she hasn’t looked at the news in a while. Akosa finds that “the state of the world seems to weigh more heavily on her than most, and while it can be hard for her and people who care about her, it’s inspiring in this world that overflows with apathy.” She says that she never used to cry when she was a child, but now she finds herself needing to sometimes, even if it’s just happy tears at a Facebook video involving animals.

She uses the phrase “used to” a lot. She used to be more self-conscious; she used to care what other people thought of her more. She used to envy the characteristics of other people. Now she seems to be seeking her own stillness, contemplating life ahead. It’s her last semester of college, and she speaks about herself as if in the midst of deciding who she is and what she believes in. She seems to be trying to find her place in the world, and taking the time to do so thoughtfully.

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