Designing a space for reflection

This chapter examines the innovative scenographic approach of the Serbian artist Ana Djurić Konstrakta, focusing particularly on her successful 2022 Eurovision Song Contest performance ‘In corpore sano’, and its effect on the artist's subsequent output. Taking into account Konstrakta's architectural background and conceptual artistic approach, the chapter proposes that the primary way of reading the artist's work is by reference to the idea of constructing a space for reflection between the work and the audience. Thus, by also studying a set of YouTube reaction videos, the chapter explores how the artist's methods of construction function not merely as decorative components, but as complex meaning-making procedures that provoke audience contemplation and critique. The author draws on her previous investigations into aural/oral dramaturgies (2023), to investigate how Konstrakta's disruption of conventions results in an engagement of audiences through ambiguity, irony, juxtaposition, counterpoint, and intertextual referencing, and how her self-reflection plays out following the ESC event. By examining the intricate interplay between visual design, musical and verbal composition, performative gesture, audience response, and artistic auto-reflection, this study offers insights into contemporary strategies of meaning-making that transcend traditional modes of representation.