Milica Dukić began her cooperation with the Elementary and Secondary Boarding School "Milan Petrović" 6 years ago, through her engagement with the beneficiaries of the School’s Work Center (a type of Day Care Center for persons with disabilities). She then became interested in creating "artworks for all" and started contemplating art that would be accessible to persons with disabilities.
In November 2018 Milica Dukić shared the First prize with three other contestants in the Inclusive Gallery Contest, which was organized
by the school "Milan Petrović" and supported by The Serbian Ministry of Education and the City of Novi
Sad. The awarded project named “If everyone would wear masks... ", was exhibited in December 2018 at the SULUV Gallery in Novi Sad.
Besides combining the techniques of embroidery and photography, for the first time in her career Milica ingeniously used artificial illumination in helping create new artworks for the exhibition. Almost all of the displayed objects at the Gallery were shown with their reverse and touchable sides turned to the public. A source of illumination mounted in a box behind the displayed object, made it possible for the obverse side, i.e.the original front side of the artwork to appear and become visible. Thus, the public could simultaneously observe the two sides of one image.
Milica’s main topics in this exhibition are costumes and masks. Most commonly, the exhibited works show portraits of persons with disabilities whose photographs were taken during a New-Years-Eve celebration on School premises during the time of Milica’s work as a volunteer for the School.The portraits were exhibited with the permission and participation of the persons involved.
The idea behind the exhibition was to demonstrate and raise awareness to the fact that despite our differences, we are nevertheless all equal. If everyone wore masks… our differences would cancel each other out in the symphony of color.
The exhibition in the SULUV gallery was envisioned and executed in a way that made it fully accessible to persons with disabilities. The dark ambiance in the gallery, necessitated by the artificial illumination in the light-boxes also pointed to the challenges facing the visually impaired.
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