Villages — Sarah Nedovic x Stephanie Stamatis

Brought together by their shared Mediterranean and Balkan heritage, Sarah Nedovic and Art Director Stephanie Stamatis present an exhibition centred on the two interwoven ideas: memory held in the land, and connection forged at the table. Drawing on the village as both a physical place and a state of being, Villages reflects on how culture endures — through objects, memories, and the everyday rituals that bind communities together. 

Nedovic’s Monument Wall Light series forms the spatial and conceptual anchor of the exhibition. Inspired by the Brutalist Spomenik memorials built across the former Yugoslavia between the 1950s and 1990s — structures that stand as symbols of memory, resistance and hope – these wall-mounted forms reinterpret architectural memory into a more intimate scale. Made by hand in unglazed sculptural clay, each tunnel-like piece evokes light as optimism — quite literally glowing at its ends — and serves as a physical manifestation of remembrance, ancestry, and place. 

The exhibition also gathers around the table — honouring the social rituals that define village life: a shared meal, a passed-down skill, an exchange of stories. As part of the program, Stamatis hosts a culturally significant dinner and workshop connected to her family’s first-generation immigrant experience. In collaboration with Nedovic and her studio, she also creates a series of ceramic artefacts for the long table – everyday pieces designed to evoke memory and invite conversation. 

Together, the works in Villages ask how we hold memory — and how we continue to pass it on, one object, one meal, at a time.