Alma Selimovic

Alma Selimovic (born 1981) is a queer artist and LGBTQIA+ human rights defender. She was one of the organizers of the first Queer Sarajevo Festival and is known for her mixed media art works which explore questions of body, gender and sexuality. Selimovic has exhibited her work in over 30 museums, galleries and other venues in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany and the United States. As of 2017, she lives and works in the US. Selimovic identifies as a lesbian and gender-queer person.

Early years and education Selimovic was born in Rijeka in Croatia in 1981, but grew up in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. When the war broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Selimovic was 11 years old. During wartime, she was a dancer and dancing gave her strength to cope with living in besieged Sarajevo.

Career Human rights work Selimovic was a member of Organization Q, which was the first organization advocating to promote and protect the culture, identities, and human rights of queer persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The group organized the first Queer Sarajevo Festival in 2008 and faced a violent backlash. Nine years later, in July 2017, Selimovic had an exhibition in Sarajevo, in which she presented eighteen fiber-glass works of gender non-conforming and trans* persons from Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also in 2017, she curated an exhibition Body language in Washington DC consisting of paintings, photographs and video installations by seven queer artists and activists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia.

Awards and recognition In 2015, Selimovic received the Fine Arts Venture Fund Award by Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 2014, she received the Justine Cretella Memorial Scholarships for the Outstanding Achievement by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 2013 and 2014, she received a Merit Award and Scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.