Maja Erdeljanin has been creating her Dear Diary collage series since 2006 through paintings, short stories and audio or video recordings.
From time to time, she gathers small fragments of everyday life—materials she finds at the end of the day in her pockets, purse, or on the table: newspaper clippings, paid invoices, flyers, and other ordinary remnants. She assembles these elements into collages and gradually adds a written narrative, slowly building pages of what becomes a large personal calendar that celebrates the quiet glory of ordinary days.
The first 418 works in the series shared the same dimensions, 24 × 30 cm, symbolically referencing the rhythm of time—24 hours across roughly 30 days. Beginning in 2020, the format of the works started to expand, with paper or canvas sizes growing to 35 × 50 cm, 50 × 70 cm, 60 × 80 cm, 100 x 120 cm and even 210 × 80 cm, allowing the diary to physically grow along with the passage of time.
Each work in the Dear Diary series carries a specific title that includes two layers of awareness: first, a reference to an officially recognized World Awareness Day, and second, the artist’s own personal Awareness Day. In this way, Erdeljanin intertwines the global and the intimate, connecting collective moments of recognition with her private reflections and everyday experiences.
Polyptych Dear Diary: Awareness Year (2006-2020), 17 m x 2 m, is made of 366 paintings size 24 x 30 cm, symbolizing 24 hours x 30 days in a month.
Dear Diary: Library (since 2024) is a collection of art-books based on the artists’ book Dear Diary: short stories (published by Museum of contemporary art Vojvodina, 2023), and QR codes with links to audio recordings of the same stories.
>>> “Vizuelne frekvencije”, RTV Vojvodina (31. 10. 2023). Autorka emisije: Staša Jamušakov.
>>> Intervju, “Spektar”, RTV Vojvodina (27. 10. 2023). Razgovor vodila Aleksandra Rajić.
>>> Catalog of the exhibition “Dear diary”
“… The mind hastily forgets yesterday, erasing the past to be able to function today, unrealistically relying on a spectacular future…” (Maja Erdeljanin)
“… Um užurbano zaboravlja juče, briše prošlost da bi mogao da funkcioniše danas nerealno se uzdajući u spektakularnu budućnost…” (Maja Erdeljanin)