Katarina Gotic DamianiBIO / CVimpressum
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Katarina Gotic Damiani


a desk is a desk is a world:
  1. your wintercreature
  2. where am i in the world?
  3. leerlauf
  4. we need a breathing tongue between
  5. codified absence
  6. zamelte | dihtung
  7. (u)hode
  8. overbound
  9. otkazna pisma
  10. (over(over))bound

bio / cv

1


your wintercreature
text-based installation, 2026

In October 2025, I overwalked the city my family was forced to leave in the beginning of the Yugoslav wars. The walking became a form of doubling—with each step, I multiplied myself and left my multitudes across the city. This doubling was followed by an attempted erasure, and then by writing: first a letter addressed to the city, and subsequently a proliferation of letters and textual fragments.

In the process of writing, I found myself multiplied again through Korak, Janke(l), Ilay, myself, our Dwelling, and the many. The many / the us interrupted and extended the initial address, speaking through, instead, and often against me.

your wintercreature constructs a textual and material territory of displacement: a landscape composed of letters, fragments, memories, and voices that give form to a collective and dissonant “we”. The work combines writing with processes of fragmentation, erasure, rewriting, and recomposition, transforming personal memory, collaborative exchanges, and existing works into handwritten and printed elements. Within this field, Korak, Janke(l), Ilay, myself, our Dwelling, and our many continue to speak, persisting in their dissonance.

The work was exhibited at PART Vienna (2026).

The title your wintercreature is drawn from Paul Celan’s “Am weissen Gebetsriemen” (Atemwende, 1967).

Exhibition photographs: Simos Batzakis


2


where am i in the world?
interactive poem, 2025

where am i in the world? is a poetic narrative composed of reflections, dreams, and materials gathered during our wedding journey to the island of Ærø, Denmark.

We married in a hurry, for sometimes many years of living in a country are as airy as a few.

What I’m saying is, there are two ways of looking at a European—one being more, and the other being less—and in this less and more, one often marries in a hurry, and when one marries in a hurry, it is on an island: the island of Ærø (for Ærø is for airy, as in “many years of living in a country”).  

And so, after days of calling, gathering, collecting, after days of waiting, and a day of travelling, we were married on December 4th, 2024.

No one we knew was there.

We had the island, and we had each other.

We exchanged rings, bought cake and champagne, we walked to a cliff, stood by the sea, stood with the sea, and then returned.

This return is a poem.

The poem is co-created by Katarina and Vince Damiani.

The poem was exhibited as part of To Move, To Stay, To Return at GMK Zagreb (2025) and was curated by What, How & for Whom / WHW.

The poems is short-listed for New Media Writing Prize in 2026.

Concept & composition: Katarina Gotic Damiani & Vince Damiani
Exhibition photographs: Sanja Merćep
 


3


leerlauf
parasitenpresse, 2026
poetry book

In leerlauf, a holiday hides in emptiness, a throat in a hug, snow in home and home in snow. The poems drift between languages, generations, and places, following words as they split, gather, and return. Composed through repetition, mistranslation, and listening, the poems of leerlauf linger among scattered traces and the unexpected relations that bind them. And so, a world is created.

The images of leerlauf are collaged from photographs of abandoned buildings in my hometown. Many were taken during walks with my parents. Unlike me, they knew a factory where my grandma worked, a bakery that made soft, moon-shaped breads on Sundays, and they knew there was Bosna — a shoe shop: they walked the world with our country on their feet.

Without the possibility of sharing the past, I see these sites as bricks, walls, and faded signs hinting at another time. Their insides haunt me: while hearing about a secret pool table in one of the basements, I look through a broken window / a missing wall / and find — not a story — but its scattered parts:

a wrapper from a bounty bar
a blue peg
a red heart
a used condom
a yellow straydog, sleeping in the shade


what am I to do with them?

As I write, I remember a long-dead pigeon in a window of an old factory. I chose not to photograph the bird, for the bird is a body, and a body that can’t escape shall not be captured. To many, this building is “TRIKO”. To me, it is “the-window-in-which-the-bird-had-died”.

This is our difference.




A selection of poems and visual collages from leerlauf has appeared in SAND, Paperbag, ETC Magazine, ARTWIFE, Harbour Review, and Gulf Stream Magazine.

In 2024, leerlauf was awarded by the Sarajevo Photography Festival and exhibited at the Bosnian Cultural Center.

The making of leerlauf was supported by a year-long grant awarded by the Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion in 2023.

4


we need a breathing tongue between
kith books, 2024
poetry book

“One day Facebook translated all posts written in my mother tongue to English. One was from a stranger looking for a ride from Prijedor, a town in northern Bosnia, to Rogaška Slatina, a town in Slovenia. When translated, the Bosnian town became ‘a part of somebody’ and the Slovenian ‘far from a part of the morning’. The urgency of the request was also exaggerated – in the original message, ‘as early as possible’ only appears once. In the translation, however, it is repeated three times. Almost like a charm.”
                               (on “overbound”,
from the interview with kith books)

                                                         
 
we need a breathing tongue between is a book of many voices. Together, they sing of a family, a river, a border. Of loss, and of language. A then and a further then.

If I could liken a book to a setting, a breathing tongue would be reclining in my grandma’s backyard in a white metal chair with coiled armrests. We drink black coffee and dip sugar cubes in the overfoam.

She begins a quick succession of big questions, listens carefully, then doesn’t. She interrupts, asks, interrupts again.

When I leave, it’s like I never leave, for the answers remain, somewhere between our cups and our mouths. When I do leave, however, I leave knowing that there, in the corner:
purple hydrangeas began blooming
her jars of compote taste as usual
a cat has left a mouse in front of the window
the lizards are out again, laying eggs in her tidy rock garden.


I leave knowing she awaits the forecast every night, sitting through the big cities and far countries. She waits to know my weather and my brother’s weather. Berlin and Vienna.

Who needs a unison?




we need a breathing tongue between
kith books, 2024
Paperback
ISBN: 9798989769506

5


codified absence
sound poem, 2022 – ongoing

codified absence is composed entirely of text found in and erased from the pages of the Schengen Borders Code (SBC), the legal framework governing border control and border crossing within the Schengen area.

The SBC outlines the conditions of entry for third-country nationals and establishes procedures for surveillance and regulation at external and internal borders.

The SBC spans fifty-two pages, divided into four titles, each subdivided into chapters and articles. The aim of codified absence is to erase through the entire document.

By selectively removing text, codified absence draws attention to patterns, repetitions, and silences within the document. Meaning gathers in fragments, pauses, and the words that resurface. Erasure, therefore, is a kind of digging.



codified absence is co-created by Katarina and Vincent Damiani.

Concept & composition: Katarina Gotic, Vincent Damiani
Voice: Katarina Gotic Damiani
Sound design: Vincent Damiani


6


(u)hode
walking scores, 2025


In late summer 2025, Alisa Oleva shared an invitation to write a walking score for her collaborative project Do you remember. The scores were to be glued to the walls of the streets of Zagreb.  

And so, the walls of the streets of Zagreb made me think and think. The walls of the streets of Zagreb made me think more closely about the walls, think more closely about the streets, and—in that thinking—four walking scores came into being: the walk of exile, burden*, border, and the walk of the shards of light (though you might not walk them in that way).  

Perhaps the walks arrived as a return to the city my family was forced to leave. Perhaps they came as a memory of those who walked the streets (who touched their walls) and then didn’t. But Alisa glued them, and Alisa glued them well.  

I began to call them (u)hode. From hodati (to walk), uhoditi (to shadow, follow closely), and uhodati (se) (to get used to something, to get good at something (even if that something is an exile (is a burden (is a border)))).  

But say it quickly and say it many—hodati, uhodati, uhoditi—say that quickly and say that many, and you might hear duh and hod: a walk and a ghost: a walking ghost, a ghostly walk, a walk for a ghost: a haunting of sorts.


*the burden walk is missing and, indeed, I do feel a little lighter.


Concept: Alisa Oleva
Walking scores: Katarina Gotic Damiani
Photographs: Sanja Merćep


7


zamelte | dihtung
performance, 2024


zamelte | dihtung is centred around a collection of everyday Germanisms spoken by my family. Some arrived during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia, lingering in the names of tools, household goods, and types of work. Others travelled with my great-great-great-grandfather, settling into cakes and cookies, soups and stews, into adjectives we use to describe people.

On the second anniversary of my never-processed application for permanent residency in Germany, I walked to the Landesamt für Einwanderung / Immigration Office wearing a veil of our common language. When I arrived, I left my Germanisms in front of the entrance.

There they stood as a makeshift memorial to our shared past.

Perhaps our shared future.


Concept, performance & editing: Katarina Gotic Damiani
Sound design: Vincent Damiani
Camera: Nemanja Šipka



8


ovebound
performance, 2024


On March 19, I walked the bridge on the river Sava.

On March 19, I walked the bridge on the river Sava for the very first time.

On March 19, I walked the bridge on the river Sava for the very first time and—on March 19—I felt the bridge shake.

Axioms:

1) The bridge on the river Sava is more than a bridge and less than a bridge, for

A) it is also a border,
B) it is a no-man’s-land.

2) Where one land begins and the other ends is not known. Two solutions are possible:

A) each land extends to the middle, and only the point at which they meet belongs to no one.
B) the entire bridge, between the two border crossings, is a no-man’s-land. The length of the no-man’s-land is the length of the bridge.

3) The bridge can be crossed only with a valid passport.

4) Standing on the bridge is not prohibited but is discouraged.

Constraints:

On March 19, I was allowed to:

1) go to the middle of the bridge where I can’t be seen,
2) not make any symbols with the yarn,
3) take the yarn off when I finish,
4) not cross to the other side.

Intervention:

On March 19, I walked the bridge on the river Sava for the very first time. In the middle, I tied a red yarn, not making a symbol. I was filmed tying a red yarn, not making a symbol. I stood in the no-man’s-land (type 2A), tied the red yarn and was filmed tying the red yarn. As I stood, I felt the bridge shake (not making a symbol).








Concept & performance: Katarina Gotic Damiani
Filming & editing: Nemanja Šipka

9


otkazna pisma
visual collage, 2022 - ongoing


otkazna pisma (letters of termination) is a collective asemic work composed of scribbles drawn in response to Bosnia and Herzegovina's deep-rooted political, environmental and economic issues. Collaged from over 180 individual submissions, our scribbles intend to bypass the often censored mothertongue and allow us—returning to the first form of visual expression—to draw our frustration and hope for change.

The scribbles were collected online and during the three group exhibitions—at DKC Incel (Banja Luka), KRAK (Bihać), and Gallery Manifesto (Sarajevo). Assembled together, they form one large, collective letter. This letter is addressed to those who made Bosnia and Herzegovina the most corrupt, polluted country in Europe. By drawing, we keep score. By drawing, we hold accountable.



Exhibition Photographs: Mehmed Mahmutović