MArch candidate Novka Cosovic’s final thesis, The Museum, explores the public, institutional spaces that are used in times of war for brutal acts. According to Cosovic, acts of violence and trauma captured in the media have one common denominator: their backgrounds. Prisoners of war have been held in school gymnasiums; dead bodies have been piled high in swimming pools; bathrooms have been turned into slaughter houses. The backgrounds in each setting include tiles, wallpaper, curtains, the architecture of our everyday lives. Normally benign settings, these “domestic-institutional-communal spaces are perverted by war and violence,” says Cosovic. She has designed several hauntingly beautiful installations for the pedestrian tunnels in Union Station in the theme of these domestic spaces that have formed the backdrop to war, including a bathroom, a living room and a swimming pool.

Cosovic argues that, at first, people would unknowingly pass through the installations in this subtle museum, unlikely to make the connection between the images and patterns that line the floors and walls and the acts of violence they are associated with. Over time, however, they may start to recognize the installations from the many news clips, photos, and videos of war that the media inundates us with daily. To help pedestrians make the association, Cosovic proposes placing television screens looping media clips of the traumatic scenes that are associated with the images throughout the tunnels. Once an association is made, one's experience of walking through these underground tunnels would inextricably change.

Cosovic’s thesis is a comment on the universality of violence and war and how the media is saturated with these images. At its centre is an examination of the “mediatisation of trauma in our current society, and how trauma has become a background subject in our daily lives.”

Cosovic presented her thesis as part of the Winter 2013 Daniels Reviews under the supervision of her advisor, Professor Barry Sampson. In addition to the photographs, she included a strikingly spooky video through the tunnels:

For more on this year’s thesis reviews, and to view other students’ final projects, check out the thesis booklet in the Student Work section.