DINA RONČEVIĆ : A PIECE OF WORK

A PIECE OF WORK

Curatorial text by Ana Kovačić:

The exhibition Piece of Work by Dina Rončević presents the material and emotional legacy of working in metalurgical industry, viewed from the perspective of a woman who spent a decade in welding workshops. It is a space where technical skill, physical endurance, and dedication to work are constantly measured against misogyny, hierarchies, and toxic workplace cultures. Piece of Work features bronze casts of welding equipment the artist used daily for many years, as well as a series of metal pieces marked with her own urine—an intimate gesture of resistance and a record of experience in a male-dominated workshop environment.

Bedewed is an intimate, almost guerrilla gesture on pieces of mild steel and bronze—material left as scrap that never became a product but remained as testimony. The intervention with urine is both an act of marking territory and an act of devaluation, rejecting the value that the system assigns to labor while disregarding the people who perform it. The processes of oxidation and patination turn anger and disappointment into visual and chemical traces of resistance, transforming both the personal and the material into the aesthetic. What began as resistance developed into an aesthetic exploration. In 2024, on International Women’s Day, after reporting a supervisor who ended up under investigation, Dina Rončević resigned from her job at one of the largest oil corporations in the world. That same day, the artist began urinating on mild steel plates to articulate the feelings tied to the experience she had just endured.

Protective equipment, again - gloves, helmet, respirator, boots—function as a permanent record of a closed chapter. Realistic casts, made from the actual equipment the artist wore, using techniques she has mastered, preserve the traces of long-term physical labor but also speak of the limits of protection: the material can shield the body from severe injury or terminal illness, but not from the social dynamics that surround it.

Both works carry a clear documentary component, as well as a strong emotional charge: from the weight of physical labor and toxic workplace dynamics to defiance, irony, and the reclaiming of space. In this confrontation of technical precision and personal gesture, bronze and steel cease to be merely industrial materials and become testimonies of survival and self-determination in corporate spaces of power. Both works blur the boundary between document and sculpture.

Like one of Rončević’s early exhibitions - created after she retrained as a car mechanic – Piece of Work emerges from accumulated experience and from the need to address class and gender inequality. In manufacturing industries these disparities are stark and therefore easier to identify (though no easier to address in the workplace), yet they exist at every level of society - from parliament to the workshop, as well as in the world of art.

The opening includes a movement-based performance (ask for a link - roncevicdina@gmail.com - and you will get it), rooted in an original text that speaks directly about the body, work, and misogyny. In the performance, the artist begins from welding - a skill in which precision and rhythm recall embroidery, yet unfolds in an environment that refuses to accept anything marked as feminine. She uses her masterful knowledge of craft not only to celebrate tradition and material, but to turn them into a critical commentary on working conditions and gender relations. The body is central - both tool and target - protected by equipment, yet exposed to scrutiny, control, and psychological pressure. The welding workshop is revealed as a microcosm of power, hierarchy, and isolation, where unwritten rules and collective pressures are mirrored from the wider context into this miniature model of society. In the exhibition space, the performance transforms personal testimony into a material trace, both physical and political.

'Protective equipment, again'
Installation of bronze pieces on a mild steel table
Photo by Sanja Merćep

'Protective equipment, again'
Bronze cast of my welding helmet, photo by Zola Sarnavka

'Protective equipment, again'
Bronze casts of my protective gloves, photo by Zola Sarnavka

'Protective equipment, again'
Broze cast of my respirator, photo by Zola Sarnavka

'Protective equipment, again'
Bronze casts of my working boots, photo by Zola Sarnavka

'Bedewed'
Steel plates treated with urine under a 8x magnifying glass.
Photo by Sanja Merćep

'Bedewed'
Steel plates treated with urine under a fresnel 25x magnifying glass.
Photo by Sanja Merćep


Dina Roncevic, performance 'Negodna/Piece of work' Photo by Sanja Merćep

Dina Roncevic, performance 'Negodna/Piece of work'
Photo by Sanja Merćep