"Alina, Olena, Lana and Jana is a single-channel digital video work and installation. It is a re-imagining of four Eastern European characters that I played as an actress for various UK television and stage productions.
These characters were difficult for me to let go of. I began to dream around them and questioned what their liberation might look like. How could they become aspirational? Were they doomed? Using the tools of fantasy and play, I began to create new versions of these protagonists with SFX makeup artist and co-producer Erika Beiza, and I developed scenarios for their liberations with videographer and co-producer Klari Agar.
Together we shot the footage which enabled me to critique the medium of TV/film by utilising its own methods of production against itself. With regards to the performances, as I knew these characters inside-out having played them before, I wanted to unshackle them, so I performed them unscripted. I carried this ethos of playfulness into the editing room in order to take full ownership over their new narratives. I also wanted to address the viewer directly and gently implicate their role in the demand for these stories.”
- Tanya Cubric
Tanya Cubric (b.1991, Tiohtià:ke/Montréal) is a multidisciplinary artist of Balkan heritage working across performance, video and installation. She was raised between the UK and Serbia and graduated from RMIT in 2024, with a Master of Fine Art.
Drawing on her background in theatre and film, she uses satirical characters, improvised performances, ready-made materials, video, and sound to explore themes of power and otherness. Fantasy and play are used as forms of resistance to renarrativise oppressive societal stereotypes.
Recent achievements: Arts Council UK funding (2020-2021); Tropical Lab Artist Residency in Singapore (2023); ACMI X + RMIT Graduate Artist in Residence (2025-2026); forthcoming solo show at First Draft Gallery in Eora/Sydney 2025.
Image: Tanya Cubric, Alina, Olena, Lana and Jana, (still) 2024. Image courtesy of the artist. Video still by Klari Agar.
