In the ever-evolving realm of contemporary art, few creatives navigate the intersection of media and personal history as compellingly as Maja Milić (b. 1985, Croatia). A visionary artist, filmmaker, sound explorer, and DJ. Maja has carved out a distinct space for herself in the experimental and conceptual art landscape. Her multidisciplinary practice challenges conventions, weaving together elements of experimental autoethnography with a bold approach to deconstructing and reconstructing reality. 

At the core of her work lies an intricate interplay between found footage, home movies, and everyday fragments of life—transformed into profound artistic expressions. Her ongoing film project, OTHER (2021–present), epitomizes this approach, unraveling the boundaries between the personal and the intercultural inclusive. Beyond cinema, these explorations extend into sound improvisation, radiophonic experiments, and expanded cinema performances, where sound and visuals converge in innovative ways. 

Maja´s conceptual book, also titled OTHER, and published by Atlas Projectos & We Make It, serves as an extension of her artistic philosophy. It underscores her commitment to reimagining the mundane, spotlighting how even trivial elements of existence can resonate with depth and complexity. 

In this interview, with my questions, we delve into the mind of Maja to uncover the inspirations, methodologies, and evolving vision behind her multifaceted body of work, mostly Other & the rest.

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Since our repeated encounters with Maja, I have become quite familiar with her work, style, and general approach to______ the things. I first encountered her at a workshop event, and after our initial meeting and exchange, she shared a link with me to watch Other. Compelled by the film, I felt it necessary to provide detailed feedback via email, sharing my first impressions alongside suggestions for improvement. I proposed segmenting the film to better showcase its conceptual and visual coherence. 

Later, I had another opportunity to explore her work from different perspectives, uncovering her unique approach to experimenting with diverse elements in a manner marked by pure sincerity and curiosity. Notably, Maja’s ethnographic and anthropological perspective is a defining feature of her artistry, profoundly shaping her themes. She delves deeply into the cultural and social dimensions of her subjects, using film as a medium to thoughtfully explore and document these layers. 

In her work, Maja Milić explores the inclusive and multifaceted concept of "the Other."  Her film, structured in four chapters, weaves a rich tapestry of footage into a layered audio-visual narrative. By employing experimental techniques and thoughtfully examining the relationships within her material, she maintains a deliberate and measured distance, addressing the ethnographic theme with honesty and nuance. The project deftly engages with ethical questions, allowing its story to unfold naturally and organically. 

During the book launch in June in Berlin, I had the privilege of viewing the film on the big screen once again, this time alongside an audience. The screening was followed by an illuminating discussion, where Maja’s insights offered fresh perspectives and reignited an ongoing dialogue. Her unique ability to intertwine critical ethnographic inquiries with a deeply personal audiovisual approach results in a work that is both compelling and profoundly thought-provoking. 

Gökçen Fındıkçı: Hi, Maja, the first thing that comes to mind is this: why did you choose to title your project simply Other? 

Maja Milić: For me, It holds a subtle connotation to the ethnographic Other as guess which is also a conceptual part of the work. which could also allude to my approach. Still, there is purposely no grammatical article to frame it, like ‘an Other’, or ‘the Other’, also not ‘Others’. So it could be anything - a noun, pronoun, verb or adjective - a simple word. At first, it is meant to leave it unclear, or even be perceived as a mistake. After you see the film or read the book, it becomes a paradox, and maybe a riddle, since the content is not other at all. I want you to question and rethink. So the title is supposed to add to the creation of meaning, like any other part of the film. It is a way to communicate with the audience.

GF: Based on your interpretation and exploration of the concept of "Other"—particularly the ethnographical "Other"—how would you define and frame this idea within your work? 

MM: Actually it all started with seeking the meaning of the Other, which is the crucial concept of ethnography. I was wondering where is this separation, dualism on which it is based: how far in any terms (spatial, temporal, material, ideological, internal, medial) we must be to consider us here distant enough to say “they” are somewhere there, out of reach? We are always in relation and we define ourselves through relation, so it just depends on what position you take at what point. I mean, there is a difference, but separation is artificial. If you can be othering others, they can other you as well, its a reversal process. In that sense, you could be at the same time the self, us and the other, which just means: if you are everything at the same time, you are also nothing. which proves they are us and that my search is not outside, but rather inside the self. I call it the Other within. In my approach, I use the concept of e ethnographic "Other" to define that part of ourselves that is involuntarily grounding our beliefs, habits, ways of acting and thinking in culture and social mentality, but which has been so deeply taken for granted that it became estranged from our own selves. That part in ourselves we don't know why it acts how it acts, because it takes our act as a norm. When observed, the most banal situations become strange, or, a container of the socio-cultural essence. Banality is a minority in the sense that it is the least observed source of understanding. Something that can't be learned just lived. It is less about what (content), and more about how (concept). 

Other could be anything, not just culture or people. As expanded term.  It could be an other archive, an other history, an other way. It's not everything, but everything else. Reading between lines and structures. 

GF: To be able to engage with this sense of wholeness and inclusivity—as previously mentioned—I wonder, does the material still retain its own identity now that it has become your material? For instance, elements like a landscape, a language, basic symbols, or simple daily rituals. How to process a memory in this context (of homemovies)? 

MM: As I believe all footage is ethnographically loaded, on one hand, I obviously use home movies for this quality, kinda personal ethnography. Although they are shot by specific individuals, something very particular, what and how it is shot, in terms of visual culture, is common to the majority. If we exclude the specifics of certain cultures (of the elements you mention), there is something common to everybody of that time. So I use the particular to say something general, still inside my own culture, so also personal, but then the general, structurally speaking, contains additionally a general extending culture. So, although I belong to a certain culture and I am speaking from inside, which is the only way for me, my intention is to speak to all. I don’t deny cultural conditioning on myself, the only culture I can deeply understand is my own. Especially using home movies, the only possibility for me is using footage found in my own ethnographic landscape, which would be my country, Yugoslavia. 

On the other hand, I use found footage because of the unique ways you can create meaning with it.

Found footage adds a more complex layer to meaning that does not exist in any other way. It attracts me because it always carries a mysterious context, which I see as potential. It is like letting something speak for you; you direct it but never have full control. I like to lose control, it adds to the unpredictability of meaning, that really means exposing oneself and getting to know oneself together with the audience, fully open to be vulnerable. So, people take control of producing meaning. 

GF: Is staying true to reality and factual accuracy an essential aspect of your work? 

MM: I have no interest in narrative/storytelling, or linear things. When you create a story, you create a meaning that is closed, you say a precise thing and come to a point. That is a kind of power, telling people there is just one way to think. I do not do this. I use elements of reality and deconstruct, maybe even abstract them, put them in unsolvable relations, opening up the meaning into infinity, while letting the images carry their own identity in their own specific way, having a life of their own. By unsolvable relations I mean relations between image-sound-text that are not led by logic or sense-making, but create something very new (for me at the same time as for the audience), sometimes guided by underlying structure of coincidence or concept. 

Important for me is also (to cite myself) the space between words, the material between images, and the silence in the music. A soul has no adjectives.