Wedding Feast
Claudia Clare created Wedding Feast as a tribute to her friend Rachel and her Albanian partner, Igballe (Igo). Composed of five painterly ceramic pieces, it portrays Rachel and Igo’s wedding in Novi Sad, Serbia, in 1996. The event was an act of lesbian emancipation in a country where same-sex marriage remains illegal. It was also an anti-nationalist statement: two hundred guests travelled from across the Balkans including from contested territories. One of the plates is a tribute to Igo and Rachel, while the other is dedicated to Igo’s mother. The bowl is a patchwork of patterns from across Europe, representing the wedding guests. The goblets refer to the act of eating and socialising at the time when time differences were maintained in Sarajevo, Bosnia. According to Yugoslav writer Ivo Andrić, during this time Bosnian people would ‘wake, rejoice and mourn, feast and fast, by four different calendars’.
