Can I rest in peace?
2022
performance
biodegradable dress by Maja Halilović
In her work, Anastasija Pavić addresses questions that have long preoccupied the human race, such as the creation of life and its extinction. Yet at its core, her work shows how these fundamental concerns often feel insignificant when compared to the societal demand for women to remain eternally beautiful in an era of normalized aesthetic surgery. When it becomes possible to get your lips done at the same place where you wax, the weight and danger behind the pursuit of eternal beauty become fully visible.
Pavić examines how the normalization of risking one’s health in pursuit of an ideal often culminates in compliments like “She ages so elegantly,” “She has no wrinkles at all,” or “She is so slim-thick, like Kim K.” The expectations placed on women have always been high, with centuries of lead poisoning, arsenic, and countless other harmful substances in beauty products worn as a badge of honor. A woman has long been expected to sacrifice her health for the sake of achieving ultimate aesthetic value.
The artist explores how social media has reshaped and intensified these pressures. While the wealthiest can afford the best surgeons, trainers, and estheticians, this fantasy is marketed to the average woman as something she can, and should pursue, sometimes at any cost.
Within this space of hypersexualization, expectation, and denial of the body’s natural aging process lies Can I Rest in Peace, a work that asks the essential question: How important is it to be a beautiful corpse?
– Jovana Trifuljesko, art historian and curator
PERFORMANCE TEXT
The idea of waking up next morning and being conscious the whole day seems unbearable.
At this point, all that matters to me is being pretty.
I worry that my mortician won’t pluck my eyebrows correctly,
and I will be in a casket with a unibrow.
I have a few hairs that can be pulled out only if you put the tweezer at a correct angle.
It just takes too much patience, and they won’t do it right.
Do you think Fashion Nova will make a copy of the dress that Kim Kardashian will be buried in?
I would rather die from being shot than being stabbed.
Blades are too phallic.
Maybe I should put enough silicone in my body that I couldn’t drown myself,
I would just float.
Maybe at the end, my freshly dyed blonde hair will keep me alive,
like a life vest.
Maybe I should make my nails pointy and long, so I could hurt you.
Leave me alone!
But I don’t want to be alone.
For who am I performing then?
When I was a child, my mother’s favourite perfume was Angel by Thierry Mugler.
It gave me headaches, but I still hugged her until I felt dizzy.
My favourite lipstick is in shade 65 Seductress.
I am a projection of your fantasies and desires.
I can’t stop thinking about that saying:
“Always wear pretty underwear in case you get hit by a car.”
Dying is embarrassing.
Stop examining my body under that harsh LED light.
Maybe it’s okay,
but only if I wear my new hot pink lace set.
Live fast,
die young,
bad girls do it well.
I’m gonna make myself harder to kill by becoming more artificial.
Everyone will love me or be scared.
It’s better to have your face rearranged on the operating table
than in a fight.
It would be such a shame to decompose,
like humans have done for most of recorded history.
I’m above that.
I want to be as pretty as Snow White,
covered in glass,
like I’m in a museum
or an art gallery.
