The exhibition In Trance We Trust, developed from the book of the same title, is the outcome of a twelve-year collaboration (2003–2014) between Nenad Racković and Srđan Veljović—a sustained exchange that functions as a dialogue, translating Racković’s bodily and performative practices into the language of photography.
Formally, the photographs engage with Racković’s artistic behavior, which may be understood across four interrelated modes:
performative acts—a lexicon of corporeal gestures;
the skater identity;
the clubber identity;
and practices of hygiene and purification.
Together, these articulate his artistic method as a form of intervention within—and upon—public space.
In translating the phenomenology of Racković’s practice into a sequence of images, the work foregrounds the intensity of expression, seeking to grasp what lies beyond the visible—its impulse, its cause. It considers how narrative operates: how it touches us, and how it speaks of community.
The deeply intimate and the traumatic surface with urgency, seizing attention and generating sensations of a similar order, drawing in participants irrespective of their will. What unfolds is a raw interplay of unstable, undefined boundaries.
The narrative constructed through these images emerges almost automatically—through recognition—as a kind of play between two agents. It does not represent reality as such; rather, it enters it from the other side, from a position outside itself. It provokes and expands the field of imagination.
It educates.
The best example is a bad example.
Nenad Racković, multimedia artist, was born in Belgrade in 1967. He studied acting at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts.
His first poem was published in 1984 in the literary magazine Književna reč and he had his first exhibition in SKC (Student Cultural Centre in Belgrade) in 1985. He was the editor and host of the Radio B92 iconic program The Rhythm of the Heart (1990–1998), and was a regular contributor to the magazine Beorama (1995–1998).
He had 18 solo and over 20 group exhibitions; he acted in three films: The Fall of Rock and Roll (1990), The Black Bomber (1991), Marble Ass (1995) and in a television film The Last Dadaist Show (TV Novi Sad, 1992); performed the theater show Saint Nick, Nicholas Edward Cave – Life and Relationships (Bitef Theater 1992); and enacted a number of performances.
Aside from the numerous essays in literary magazines, he has also published six novels: Aspirin (2002), Book of Recipes (2002), The Insurmountable Story (2006), The Fifth Season (2017), The Bible (2019), Slime and Bile (2021).
The independent art association Remont published Nenad Johnny Racković’s monograph in 2018.
Srđan Veljović, photographer and conceptual documentarian, was born in Belgrade in 1968. Graduated from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade. He has been working in collaboration with a number of cultural institutions: Student Cultural Center, Center for Cultural Decontamination, National Library of Serbia, Youth Center Belgrade.
He worked as an associate at Radio B92. Documented the Belgrade club scene with Apgrade collective.
He has published photos in printed and electronic media: X Zabava, Beorama, Feral Tribune, Peščanik, Komunalinks, Playboy, Haaretz, Dazed Digital.
He was a member of the Led Art collective.
His work was exhibited in all of the former Yugoslav states, then in Germany, Albania, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Italy and the United States.
He has published three books: The Nineties (2020) and Petrovaradin, Casual Reflections on Time (2020), In Trance We Trust, (2022).
