The title of the Lessons of Darkness exhibition is taken from the film of the same name by Werner Herzog, and is also the title of this year’s edition of the FeKK Short Film Festival. This year’s theme raises questions about the lessons that we might find in the dark of the cinema, and also in the increasingly uncertain and bleak world around us. The exhibition develops this initial idea through the work of the members of the Kela art production space, who through photography, video, objects and installations investigate the materiality of the photographic medium, light, and the processes of time, decay and transience.
The core premise of the exhibition is the darkroom as a space for the creation and transformation of the image. The red gels on the gallery windows, reminiscent of the light in an old-fashioned analogue darkroom, establish a spatial connection with the photographic process, and colour the perception of the exhibited works.
The works address photography as a medium shaped by time, light, chemical processes, and physical changes. They feature degraded film, gelatine silver prints, orthochromatic film, screen prints, camera-less light experiments, interference images, and light and robotic objects. Some of the materials bear traces of oxidation, wear, decay and reflection, which become active co-creators of form and image.
The exhibition reflects on the relationships between document and fiction, between personal and collective memory, and between technological and natural processes. Ruins, archives, organic remains, mechanical systems and photographic materials all reveal processes that usually remain hidden – ageing, decay, the transformation of images, and the consequences of human intervention in the environment.
Lessons of Darkness combines diverse artistic practices, and offers a variety of narratives about transience, memory, photography as a place of intervention, and the ways in which images shift their meaning over time.
Kela art production space
Kela is an art production space that serves as a shared environment for individual artists with diverse interests and creative practices, particularly in the field of photography. They featured as a collective at the Skup exhibition at the Škuc Gallery and in the accompanying publication of the same name, and also at the Sestav exhibition as part of the Kranj Foto Fest.
The space is open not only to Kela members, but also to artists from outside. Alongside the main studio, it hosts presentations of art publications and artists’ books, exhibitions, talks, and social events, thereby fostering introductions, collaborations and exchanges within the local contemporary art scene.
Participating artists: Peter Fettich, Maša Knapič, Hana Podvršič, Luka Prijatelj, Mojca Radkovič, Sara Rman, Urška Savič, Olja Simčič Jerele, Iva Suhadolnik Gregorin, Vita Tušek
Production: FeKK Short Film Festival, SCCA, Mala Galerija
MGBS curator: Ema Kobal
Accompanying programme:
Friday, 21 August at 5 pm: guided tour with the curator and artists