Exhibition Mileva: “We Are One Rock”

The exhibition Mileva: “We are one rock” was opened on New Year's Eve in the Museum of the City of Novi Sad, at the Petrovaradin Fortress, and presents the public and private life of the scientist Mileva Marić Einstein through the combination of art and science.
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Mileva Marić Einstein, Serbian physicist and mathematician, was born on December 19, 1875 in Titel, and died on August 4, 1948 in Zurich, Switzerland. She attended the Girls’ High School in Novi Sad, and graduated from “Realka” in Sremska Mitrovica in 1890 as the best in her class in physics and mathematics. She was only the fifth woman to be admitted to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1886, where she met her future husband, Albert Einstein. Mileva and Albert were married in 1903 and divorced in 1919. What is still controversial is Mileva's contribution to Einstein's scientific work. It is known that Mileva's average in physics at university was 5.5, just like Albert's. Mileva and Albert did work together, but one of them was denied recognition for their joint work. Unfortunately, due to the lack of documents that would confirm this, modern science does not recognize the genius of Mileva Marić and her significant contribution to science to the extent that it should. 
What is interesting is that in Novi Sad, on the street Kisačka 20, the family house of Mileva Marić Einstein, where Mileva and Albert lived for some time, was located. The house was built in 1907 and renovated in 2019. There are stories that, while they were staying there, Albert was nicknamed "the goofy son-in-law of Marić" because of his unconventional behavior and long, disheveled hair.

Due to the scarcity of information about the life of this great scientist, we can learn about her based on the letters that Mileva and Albert exchanged. It was in these letters that the artist Dušan Jovović found inspiration for this exhibition. The exhibition consists of 12 units, and the space is divided in the composition into "light" and "dark" and they form one inseparable unit. The entire exhibition involves a combination of different types of art and technology such as 3D animation, digital sound, hologram, as well as sculpture, graphic design, drawings and paintings.


We invite you to visit the exhibition, which is open for the next 3 years, and in this way pay tribute to Mileva's character and work, which certainly deserved it.

Each room has a certain significance or represents some aspect of Mileva's life. According to the author of the exhibition, the dark tunnel at the very beginning of the exhibition represents a metaphor that marks the entry into the "bright mind" of the scientist. In the middle of the first room there is a white bicycle, which was characteristic of Vojvodina and was important for this scientist, because she had difficulties with walking. When you sit on it and turn the pedals, "Mileva's perspective" opens before us.

The closer we are to the end of the exhibition, the more we move away from the light, which marked the productive period of her life, and get closer to the darkness, which represents that part of her life filled with suffering due to divorce and illness.
The firefly in this exhibition carries the meaning of life, new possibilities and infinity, and the author of the exhibition found the inspiration for that metaphor during Mileva’s stay in Titel, at the moment when she watched the choreography of fireflies above the Titel hill, and one of the rooms in the Museum is dedicated to this very moment.

The reason for being fascinated by this exhibition is not only because we see in it a combination of art, science and new technologies, but because we can experience different emotions by observing different aspects of Mileva Marić's life. What stirs the emotions is not only the narrative of Mileva's life, but also the combination of warm and cool colors, light and dark, and projection. The projection of water and the waves moving on the ceiling and the waterfall descending to the rock form a magical image that leaves the viewer mesmerized.
The exhibition came to life with its interactivity, the grand piano in one room conveys with its notes the feelings that Mileva felt in difficult moments, and her hologram speaking in Serbian and German gives us the impression that she is in the room with us at that moment.

From this exhibition, one can learn a lot about Mileva's life from a more personal perspective, rather than from a biography, documentary or any book. The melancholic atmosphere, the rich symbolism of the exhibition and the importance of this scientist as a person, as well as her work, will definitely remain etched in our memories after visiting the exhibition. Also, the exhibition invites us to view Mileva not as a victim, but as a brave and brilliant figure who opened a scientific window to the expanses of space.

We invite you to visit the exhibition, which is open for the next 3 years, and in this way pay tribute to Mileva's character and work, which certainly deserved it.
Authors: Teodora Šiklošić and Katarina Klisura

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