Emil the Orangutan was a pet of a Serbian civil servant, who, due to a job transfer, had to sell Emil to the Schönbrunn Zoo. Between 1927 and 1938, Emil had been a media star and a favourite attraction in Vienna – until he became extremely fat and so depressed that he refused every contact. After his death, Emil’s body parts were scattered around scientific institutions and museum collections. Only his skull remains missing.
Concept and scenario in collaboration with: Daniel Popović; Video processing: Filip Markovinović; 3D model & Printing by Francesco Pusterla @ Accademia di Belle Arti Aldo Galli - IED Como. Special thanks to: Gerhard Heindl (Schönbrunn Zoo), Alexander Bible (Natural History Museum, Vienna), Maximilian Petrasko (Zoological Collection, Vienna), Sonja Žakula (Institute of Ethnography, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade), Dubravka Sekulić (IZK Institute for Contemporary Art, Graz), Ana Hušman (Academy of Arts, Zagreb), Dejan Vasić (art historian and independent curator, CZKD, Belgrade), Sofija Kamasi (designer), Kinga Emese Fazekas (German language translator and interpreter), Marta Palašti (German language translator, and mother), Nikola Džafo and Vesna Grginčević (Šok ZaDruga, Novi Sad), Konstantin Đuričković (2D skull animation, Academy of Art Novi Sad), Filip Ivančić (transport of Emil's skull), Luke Mackin (Sumatra wallpaper, PT. Wild Sumatra Adventures), Katarina Kostandinović (curator, KCB).
ANDREA PALAŠTI (b. 1984) is an artist and educator based in Novi Sad, Serbia. She works across artistic, curatorial and pedagogical boundaries experimenting with ways of knowledge production. Her work includes photography, video and illustrated lectures - often in playful ways. Her practice is highly informed by collaborations with other artists/collectives, her family, students, curators, journalists, scientists and/or historians. She is part of the artist led initiative ŠoK Cooperative, a board member of the SULUV gallery, and associate professor at the Academy of Art in Novi Sad, where she teaches Elements of Visual Art, blending her collaborative artistic research projects with educational strategies. Since 2014, she teamed up with picture researcher Daniel Popović (b.1978) on investigating picture archives and its potential to unveil a nuanced understanding of the world.
