The theme of this year’s festival is Shadows and Reflection. We designed the festival programme with an eye to current times, which are demanding from us a more in-depth scrutiny of ourselves, and thereby also our surroundings. Art has since the earliest days set up a mirror to the outside world, and this time around at the festival we can encounter a range of projects which in one way or another reflect the current moment and explore either its political or social implications or on the other hand embark on a distinctly subjective commentary on personal or social reality. Like shadows from ancient times, allusions to the recent and distant past infuse the present, and speak to us, the viewers, through various stories that touch our emotions and reason. At the same time there are a good number of projects that explore this theme from an entirely formal viewpoint; the exhaustive exploration of the media of light always inspires and thrills the viewer – and this will without doubt be the case in the latest version of the festival.
Mala galerija Banke Slovenije is hosting a group exhibition showcasing the work of students of the Video, animation and new media course at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana. Using translucent pipes, Lara Žagar has designed a large structure that evokes a futurist industrial setting: her project looks at the dystopian factory future, where the main raw material is now light, a metaphor for new, clean energy. The project NOID II by Mojca Radkovič deals with recognising the alien in the similar. Inset up as a dialogue between two protagonists, the viewers take a position through which they judge the relationship. The space set up between the images, background and the involved viewer poses a range of intimate questions contingent on a game of perception. The Shard-Maker (Črepinjator) by Hana Zadnikar is a mysterious device that constantly destroys its glass substance, turning it into dust. As the artist says, the project was conceived as a kind of reminder that content and events in the cycle of life inevitably end in disintegration, which in the end renders us all equal. A group of artists involving Korina Ferčec, Jurij Hartman, Tomaž Pavček, Pika Potočnik, Tyana Rendič and Eva Ana Zudič have put their names to a new project on display in the gallery. Using polarised foil from LED screens they created a pair of objects which in constant movement produce ever new structures in design and colour.
Participating students: Lara Žagar, Mojca Radkovič, Hana Zadnikar, Korina Ferčec, Jurij Hartman, Tomaž Pavček, Pika Potočnik, Tyana Rendič, Eva Ana Zudič
Mentors: Sašo Sedlaček (Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana) and Marko Vivoda (Lighting Guerrilla)
Production: Strip Core / Forum Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design of UL, PiNA Koper, RUK Consortium
MGBS Curator: Vladimir Vidmar
Cofinancers and sponsors: City of Ljubljana – Department of Culture, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, ZEOS, d. o. o.
