Unfamiliar Area | Hana Besjedica & Hana Jelovšek: “Contemporary Woman”

04 March 2024 > 04 April 2024 Kindly invited to the mini online exhibition "Contemporary Woman" by Hana Jelovšek & Hana Besjedica, which is a part of Unfamiliar Area project.

 

The work entitled Contemporary Woman (created under the mentorship of Matej Stupica at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design) is a collaborative project of visual communication designers, Hana Besjedica and Hana Jelovšek, which interweaves illustration, design and poetry in the form of an artist's book. The work was created by two artists who, in the process, were getting to know one another and searching for a common design expression. It encompasses poetry and design, and was created by means of collecting materials that had an influence on Hana Besjedica's writing, while Hana Jelovšek, with the overprint technique, created unique illustrations that enrich the poetry collection. Besjedica's poetry is characterised by the stream of consciousness, the unconscious and, above all, everything that affected her in any way when she felt that she was not enough. The poems reveal the causticity and hysteria in a world with unrealistic expectations. Since the poems are two-faced, so is the design, where formats of different sizes, which include poetry, are interrupted now and then by A4 kitschy APOCALYPSE, IT HAPPENS and FIREWORKS, which are Besjedica's life motto. There is no shortage of stickers, hot pink and dead fish.

Lucija Zajc

 

Hana Besjedica (2001) is a student of visual communication design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana. In her works, she is mainly interested in conceptualising stories. She is very passionate about the word and its visual communication meaning, which opens up new worlds of understanding reality in the viewer and reader. She likes books and to cooperate with authors of texts. She designed the cover for Eva Mahkovic's auto-fictional work entitled TOXIC (Beletrina, 2023). As a designer, she reads a lot and occasionally also writes – that's how the Contemporary Woman was created. In her works, she predominantly explores such topics as the concept of girlhood, horror and memory. In 2019, she exhibited her graphic works at the Transgeneration of Youth in the Cankar's Hall, in 2020 she had a solo exhibition, The Peak of the Abuse of Luxury, in the Meršol atrium of the St. Stanislav, in 2023 at the Biennale of Polish Posters in Warsaw. She collaborated with ARS 60 Years and with the collective Bastardi with the project For Good Old Times in the gallery Portal 2-7-7-7-8 (2023) in 2023.

Hana Jelovšek (2001) is a graphic design student at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. Her approach to design is relaxed and playful; she frequently employs simple shapes and bright colours. Lately, she has been experimenting with various graphic techniques. She is particularly interested in screen printing and blind printing. She has exhibited her works at Design Week in Graz and Berlin and was part of several group exhibitions in Ljubljana. One of her prints was part of a group exhibition in Nantong, China. At the end of last year, she co-organized and curated the 130KMH exhibition in Maribor.

Contemporary Woman, artist book, 2024

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Other Unfamiliar Area exhibitions

Nina Baznik: Unfamiliar area (Neznano področje)
and others (at the bottom of the page)
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Curated by: Lucija Zajc
Proof-reading (of Slovene): Sonja Benčina
Translation (to English): Ana Makuc
Financial support: Ministry for Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City Council Ljubljana - Department for Culture