Exhibition | Sandra Sterle: (Re)inventing the Past, Imagining the Future
A new exhibition by multimedia artist Sandra Sterle, entitled “(Re)inventing the Past, Imagining the Future”, is on view at the Rector’s Palace in Zadar, alongside screenings of her film “Bringing Grandpa Back to Life”. The exhibition explores family memory, archives and the ways in which the past is reshaped through personal experiences, storytelling and interpretation.
At the heart of the project is the story of the artist’s grandfather, Ante Jelenković, who was born in Zadar in 1910 and belonged to the city’s Albanian minority, the Arbanasi community. Drawing on her family history and the stories her grandfather left behind, Sandra Sterle explores the boundary between documented events, memory and fiction.
Her grandfather’s stories are more than accounts of the past. Passed down over time, they have been filtered through personal memories, emotions and fresh interpretations with each retelling. This process becomes an important part of the artwork, questioning how much of the history we know rests on documents and how much depends on the ways we remember and recount it.
The exhibition and film thus connect a family story with broader questions of history and identity. The archive is viewed not merely as a collection of preserved documents, but also as a space in which the past is continually reconstructed and personal memories become part of a shared heritage.
Curated by Olivia Nițiș, the project draws on Sandra Sterle’s longstanding artistic practice, which encompasses film, photography, installations, spatial interventions and performance.
Sandra Sterle: A Multimedia Artist from Zadar
Sandra Sterle was born in Zadar in 1965. She graduated in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1989 and continued her studies in the Film and Video Department at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where she studied under Professor Nan Hoover in 1995 and 1996.
Her work has been presented in museums, galleries and cultural institutions in Croatia and abroad, and is held in public archive and museum collections. She teaches in the Film and Video Department at the Arts Academy, University of Split.
An Exhibition Marking 300 Years of the Arbanasi Community in Zadar
The exhibition “(Re)inventing the Past, Imagining the Future” and screenings of the film “Bringing Grandpa Back to Life” form part of the programme marking 300 years of the Arbanasi community in Zadar. The project is a collaboration between the Zadar National Museum and the Zadar Concert Office, supported by the City of Zadar, the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, and the Research into the Documentation and Performance of Artistic Practice programme.
The exhibition is open until 15 December 2026 on the second floor of the Rector’s Palace in Zadar.
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