Bodies, borders and law: Tanja Ostojić’s Looking for a Husband with EU Passport (2000–2005)

Tanja Ostojić's Looking for a Husband with EU Passport began in 2000 with an advertisement that invoked reference to, but also transgressed, the kinds of sexualised tropes used by women from the “former East” who were seeking husbands from the “former West”. Subsequently entering into a marriage as part of the artwork, and moving to Düsseldorf, Ostojić concluded the project with her divorce. The chapter invokes the complex politics of the so-called “Balkan States” and the attempts of Serbia to enter the European Union as the context for understanding the work. Feminist readings of this, as Hilary Robinson explains, include Ostojić's interrogation the legal provision of the right for a woman's body to be in a particular place due to her legal relationship with a man who has specific rights of abode. Warranting recognition for its potential to unsettle Art History's privileging of masculinist avant-garde activities, Looking for a Husband with EU Passport is also especially noteworthy for its activism – its seeking to make significant changes in women's lives.