Jasmina Cibic — NADA (Act I, Act II, Act III), 2017 – 2018
Presented in the exhibition MUSÉES HORS FRONTIÈRES — Art / Design / Dunkerque – Krefeld
Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque
24 January – 30 August 2026
General curators: Katia Baudin (Director, Kunstmuseen Krefeld) & Keren Detton (Director, Frac Grand Large)
Curator of the Dunkerque exhibition: Keren Detton
Participating artists include:
Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Richard Artschwager, Marion Baruch, Peter Behrens, Henryk Berlewi, Bless, Shannon Bool, Franck Bragigand, Marcel Broodthaers, Alexander Calder, Christo, Jasmina Cibic, Sonia Delaunay, Walter Dexel, Volker Döhne, Helmut Dorner, Paul Dressler, Otto Eckmann, Lucio Fontana, Ludger Gerdes, Gilbert & George, Andreas Gursky, Hans Haacke, Peter Halley, Anton Henning, Candida Höfer, Vassily Kandinsky, Annette Kelm, Konrad Klapheck, Yves Klein, Harald Klingelhöller, Karin Kneffel, Eva Kot’átková, Jannis Kounellis, Adolf Luther, László Moholy-Nagy, Alfred Mohrbutter, Marcel Odenbach, Claes Oldenburg, Otto Piene, Sigmar Polke, Norbert Prangenberg, raumlaborberlin, David Reed, Gerhard Richter, Hans Theo Richter, Dieter Roth, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Martin Schwenk, Gerry Schum, Daniel Spoerri, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Jean Tinguely, Rosemarie Trockel, Timm Ulrichs, Ignacio Uriarte, Isabelle Vannobel, Franz Erhard Walther, Lawrence Weiner, Franz West.
Set within the expansive architecture of the Lacaton & Vassal building that hosts Frac Grand Large, MUSÉES HORS FRONTIÈRES brings together historical, archival, and contemporary works to question how museums evolve, how they inhabit space, and how artistic legacies circulate and are reactivated across borders. The exhibition constitutes a major cultural exchange between Dunkerque and Krefeld marking 50 years of a civic and institutional partnership, and foregrounds the museum as a site of critical inquiry, social engagement, and aesthetic experimentation.
Within this ambitious framework, Jasmina Cibic presents her film trilogy NADA: Act I, Act II, Act III, deepening the exhibition’s examination of how institutions—architectural, political, and cultural—stage ideologies and shape the imaginaries of modernity.
A Trilogy on the Architectures of Statecraft, Cultural Seduction, and the Afterlives of Soft Power
NADA is a three-part film project that scrutinises the strategic role of art, architecture, and performance within the machinery of nation-building. Across its three Acts, the trilogy follows a choreography of persuasion in which aesthetics are mobilised to communicate ideology, stabilise political alliances, and project visions of progress.
Each film situates itself within a historically charged architectural space—modernist showcases, diplomatic interiors, and state-sanctioned cultural gifts—allowing the built environment to function as both stage and protagonist. These spaces, as seen throughout MUSÉES HORS FRONTIÈRES, echo the exhibition’s broader inquiry into how modern architecture has served as a vehicle for political ambition and institutional identity.
Act I focuses on a mid-century landmark commission intended to embody national ideals, staging a negotiation between cultural advisors, architects, and political representatives.
Act II unfolds in an interior shaped by diplomatic protocol, where performers animate speeches and policy documents, revealing the aestheticised labour of political consensus.
Act III revisits a site of symbolic cultural gifting—an architectural offering intended to cement geopolitical relations—where archival dialogue exposes the language of international friendship and soft power.
Across the trilogy, the character NADA (“hope” in several Slavic languages, yet also resonant with emptiness) carries the paradox of cultural idealism within ideological frameworks. She embodies both the aspirational promise of art and the risk of its instrumentalisation.
Through precise mise-en-scène and the reactivation of archival discourse, Cibic examines how cultural infrastructures produce political meaning—making ideology appear natural, desirable, even beautiful. Yet the trilogy also points toward alternative readings: moments when scripted narratives falter, when monumental gestures reveal their fragility, and when institutional futures may be reimagined.
In the context of MUSÉES HORS FRONTIÈRES, NADA reflects on the museum itself as a political technology—an apparatus that collects, preserves, legitimises, and performs the values of a society. By situating the trilogy within this cross-border exhibition, the work interrogates how institutions inherit histories, how they enact power, and how they might propose new modes of solidarity and cultural responsibility.
Together, Acts I–III form a meditation on the choreography of national self-image—and on what becomes possible when that choreography is exposed, questioned, or disrupted.