The ground-floor exhibition space of the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova features the artist and Roma activist Selma Selman’s performance You Have No Idea (Election Day) (2020) as part of the Commentary exhibition series.
The artist has carried out the performance, in which she repeatedly shouts the title phrase, several times in different contexts. It addresses her multifaceted identity and the conditions that contribute to her marginalization as a woman, a Roma, an artist, and an immigrant in Germany and the US. Her intersectional and hybrid identity is emphasized in the performance in relation to the hegemonic power structures that systematically marginalize her and deprive her of equality. Her cry “You have no idea!” resonates as the cry of marginalized individuals whose lives and identities are (too) often misunderstood and systemically oppressed.
Selman very notably did the performance in the context of the tense socio-political situation surrounding the 2020 US presidential election. She carried it out on election day in the middle of Washington, DC, shouting the performance mantra while walking down one of the main streets of the city, drawing the attention of passersby and the reporters covering the election, one accompanied by great social turmoil concerning labor, human, and reproductive rights.
Today, Selman’s work resonates strongly in the Slovenian context, especially in light of widespread moral panic and Romaphobia. The tragic events that occurred in 2025 in Novo mesto fueled intolerance towards the Roma minority in Slovenia. One of the very specific results of this has been the adoption of a new public safety act, the so-called Šutar Act, which has formalized mechanisms of collective punishment of the Roma community and financially and materially disproportionately affected one of the most neglected and excluded social groups in Slovenia.
Selman’s You Have No Idea acts as a forceful response to such circumstances. Today, her mantra echoes as a universal gesture of resistance against the fact that hegemonic structures keep exercising their power as they did throughout history – by repressing the most vulnerable members of the community.
The work is presented in the Commentary series courtesy of the artist.
Selma Selman (b. Bihać, 1991) is an artist and Roma activist. She graduated from the Department of Painting at the University of Banja Luka and received her MA in Transmedia, Visual and Performing Arts from Syracuse University in the US. Her work is based on her personal experiences of systemic oppression as a woman of Roma origin, and critically addresses social stereotypes and repressive mechanisms. In her practice, she aims to protect and empower women and break down the prejudices that deny her community the right to self-expression.
Selman lives between Europe and the US. She has presented her work in major international institutions and biennials worldwide (Stedelijk Museum, Gropius Bau, Hamburger Banhof, documenta fifteen, Manifesta 14), and has received numerous international awards for it.
