Centre for Civic Education (CCE) and Cultural Front from Serbia, in cooperation with the Public Institution Galleries and Museums of Podgorica, will open the exhibition “Labyrinth of the Nineties” on Tuesday, 13 May 2025, at 20:00, at the Modern Gallery in Podgorica.
The goal of this exhibition is a new, different and deeper perspective on a decade that radically reshaped the lives of millions of people in this region (and also globally), whose consequences we still feel today, perhaps more than ever, through political divisions, social tensions and cultural fractures. It is the result of four years of dedicated research work and cooperation among individuals, experts, activists and partner organizations from the countries of the former Yugoslavia, gathered around the Museum of the Nineties initiative, launched by the Cultural Centre Grad from Belgrade. The initiative seeks to collect and preserve from oblivion sources and testimonies about the last decade of the 20th century in the territory of the former Yugoslav state.
The exhibition challenges visitors to ask themselves: have we, as individuals and societies, ever really emerged from the labyrinth we entered in the early 1990s? After the war, instead of healing society, ruling elites focused on personal enrichment through criminal privatisations and the perpetuation of tensions, especially through the politicisation of commemorations and ignoring citizens’ real needs. Over time, it seemed as though the war became increasingly present, rather than a subject of collective reckoning and peacebuilding. The exhibition Labyrinth of the Nineties offers a response to policies that place ethno-nationalism and chauvinism above justice, myths above humanity, and division above solidarity. Wandering through the labyrinth, visitors are given the opportunity to view that traumatic decade from multiple perspectives primarily from the standpoint of those whose lives were shattered in a single day, who opposed the war, or were forced to leave their homes, surrounded by deception on all sides.
No exhibition can fully capture an entire decade. This is especially true of the 1990s, which left an indelible and lasting mark on our region. That is why the guiding principle of this exhibition is the fragment or the shard. Labyrinth of the Nineties creates a space for critical reflection, encourages dialogue, and invites visitors to enrich the narrative with their own experiences and memories. Only together, by looking into the recent past, can we come to understand our present and imagine a different future.
The Podgorica exhibition Labyrinth of the Nineties is an expanded version of the installation previously presented in Belgrade in 2023 and Sarajevo in 2024. The curatorial team includes Dubravka Stojanović, Igor Štiks and Dejan Ubović, while the segments from Montenegro were shaped by historians Filip Kuzman, Vukan Ražnatović and Miloš Vukanović.
The exhibition will be opened from 13 May 2025 every working day of the Modern Gallery of the Museums and Galleries of Podgorica, from 09:00 to 20:00.
A press conference presenting the exhibition concept in more detail will be held on 12 May.
The Labyrinth of the Nineties exhibition in Podgorica is realised by the M90 Foundation and the Cultural Front from Serbia, in cooperation with the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) from Montenegro. The exhibition was created as part of the Museum of the Nineties project, with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands through the MATRA programme and the Shared Horizons project, funded by the French Republic and implemented by Expertise France Groupe AFD. The content of this exhibition is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the donors.
Contact for media and public relations: Maja Marinović, maja.m@cgo-cce.org , +382 68 568 693
Photo author: Bojan Kovačević, Museum of the Nineties