Confronting the Balkans: Post-Socialism, Post-Modernism and Contemporary Art Practice in South Eastern Europe since 1968. Maria Todorova’s Imagining the Balkans (OUP, 1997) sought to unpick the implications of the word Balkans, understanding and negating its toxic connotations. Whilst this canonical text has gained traction in Slavonic and Eastern European studies, the implications of the book for how art from the Balkan region can be understood, and discussed, have yet to be worked through.