Mothers
Single channel 4K video, stereo sound
7 min 26 sec in a continuous loop
With support of the Museum of Contemporary Art Montenegro, The Non-Aligned Art Collection Laboratory
Voice Over: Anna-Louise Plowman
Visual Effects Supervisor: Henrik Bach Christensen
Lighting and rendering Christoph G. Balanescu
Effects TD: Leo Evershed
Wangle Studio producer: Sune Neye
Sound design: Sašo Kalan
Photogrammetry: Kibla, Slovenia
The artist created the video installation Mothers (2025) within the context of the archive of the Gallery of the Non-Aligned—the only institution dedicated to collecting and exhibiting artworks gifted by heads of state, ambassadors, and cultural elites of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Established during the Cold War by states that sought an alternative to the polarities of East and West, the Non-Aligned Movement offered a third path: one that privileged solidarity among recently decolonised and emergent nations and promoted cultural, political, and economic autonomy. Within this ideological framework, art was not merely a soft power tool but a form of diplomatic language—a symbolic gesture of sovereignty, alliance, and mutual respect.
From this unique archive, Cibic selected only sculptures depicting female heads, busts, and figures—representations of self-defining mother nations. Chosen by predominantly male government officials and created by male artists, these sculptures stand in as allegorical embodiments of national identity, their forms echoing ideals of nurture, origin, and continuity. Yet the countries they represent—many shaped by the legacies of colonialism and Cold War geopolitics—have seen their cultural narratives repeatedly obfuscated, exoticised, or destroyed by dominant Western paradigms.
In Mothers, these sculptures are linked through a sequence of explosions, transforming their idealised forms into ciphers of ancestral urgency—a matriarchal warning system that spans territories and timelines. The slow rotation of each figure, illuminated like a precious jewel in a storefront display, underscores their objectification and the commodification of identity. As cracks begin to spread and multiply, the sculptures ultimately disintegrate into dust and debris, evoking both the fragility and resilience of cultural memory.
The accompanying soundscape merges ASMR-inspired textures—highlighting the voyeuristic pleasure embedded in witnessing destruction—with the voice of a female narrator who speaks words of resistance and strategies for survival. These fragments are drawn from archival debates on cultural sovereignty and self-determination within the NAM, where art functioned as a frontline in the struggle for ideological independence. Through this work, Cibic reframes the legacy of Non-Alignment as a feminist project—one in which care, vulnerability, and symbolic refusal emerge as acts of geopolitical agency.