The challenges of demographic ageing in society have for some time been a hot topic of the ‘First’ and ‘Second’ Worlds, and an increasingly important aspect of new social contracts. Beyond the daily political manipulations of this trend, the issue of its social and economic implications is becoming a subject of serious scientific enquiry in various fields, which are attempting to resolve the challenges of an ageing population in solidarity and inclusiveness, while at the same time in a completely practical and utilitarian way. Joining these efforts are students of the second-cycle study of graphic design in the Department of Visual Communication at the UL Academy of Fine Arts and Design, with their exhibition Longevity. Their works ask questions about multidisciplinary design solutions for facing the demographic challenges of the future.
Their solutions are aimed first and foremost at easing the everyday life of old people, who are now a sizeable proportion of the population, and who need adapted mechanisms for grappling with the ever more rapidly changing world around them. The application created by Fiona Sivka, Aler_ID, offers a digital administrative assistant that helps its users in the drawn-out and stressful world of bureaucratic procedures, while also addressing solutions as a new field of enquiry, since digitalisation opens up new possibilities for manipulation, especially within a population that is not au fait with it. The traps of idealised technological solutions are something specifically warned about in Flora Simpatica, an installation by Ana Valenko, which literally animates such interfaces with a living agent – a plant with which in the jargon of technological interfaces it articulates the indispensable human need for coexistence.
Ana Karlin also places a plant at the centre of her project: her action to green the city – the trend of hanging gardens – is rearticulated whereby places for posters are populated with beds of spice plants. As a counter to the demographic challenges she therefore places the beneficial possibilities of urban gardening. A singular kind of conclusion to the exhibition is provided by the animation of Jovana Đukić, who in a speculative scenario of discovering immortality draws attention to finality as an ultimate horizon of the sense of human beings. It is a caution that our vision of a better future should not stem from escapist impulses, but should rather function as a mechanism for the more rapid fulfilment of consensual aims of us all as a community.
Participating students: Ana Karlin, Fiona Sivka, Jovana Đukić, Ana Valenko
Produced by: Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Department of Visual Communication, Graphic Design course
Co-producer: PINA – Cultural and Educational Society
Mentors: Prof. Boštjan Botas Kenda, Asst. Prof. Emil Kozole
Co-mentors: Asst. Prof. Dr Marina Klemenčič, Ana Markežič, Borut Jerman, Marko Vivoda and Sašo Kalan
MGBS Curator: Vladimir Vidmar
