10. Reciklart Festival | Recollections – group exhibition

07 August 2024 > 23 August 2024 Kindly inviated to the opening of "Recollections" group exhibition of Katarina Kolenc, Nina Pernat and Doroteja Erhatič, a part of the 10th Reciklart Festival. It will take place in the Alkatraz Gallery (AKC Metelkova mesto, Ljubljana) on Wednesday, 7 August at 7 pm.

The exhibition at the 10th Reciklart festival is thematically dedicated to the anniversary, and on top of it, it is sprinkled with plastic, which is also the central theme of this year's edition of the festival. The foundation of all the presented works thus at least smells of plastic, that is, if the work is not entirely plastic. The occurrence of plastic waste in art addresses a different kind of audience. It tries to break into the global visual field from the world of art. It is an important commentary on the state of our planet and perhaps also the future of the Earth. At this point, we must also address the production of unnecessary objects and materials in art. Perhaps recycling material in art appears to be more ethical than using non-renewable materials obtained from natural resources. The process of archiving, which for the sake if digitalisation recently exists solely as zeroes and ones on computers, shall come to life in all its materiality this time. What has degenerated through various techniques that catch fragmented pieces of images and feelings, shredded moments that we relive approximately just as occasional light mists. Sometimes we throw some away like cheap plastic. Or we suppress them, or they seem so insignificant that they just float by. Nina Pernat tries to give plastic back its small moment of glory in the recycling of memories, and find a grip and lasting moments in the flood of visual ballast. We reserve the right not to sue us if you do not like yourselves on the photographs. But you can steal them. And destroy them.

In her practice, Doroteja Erhatič stems from her personal ecology, where in the creative process, she tries to acquire all materials second hand, reuse them and recycle them also as works of art or as an idea itself. She draws the inspiration for her work from the ephemeral and temporary, and integrates the experience it brings with materials she finds in space, searching for a new sense of inveteracy and adaptability to change. In her works, she refers to an ecological thought which Timothy Morton describes as a virus that infects all areas of thought. He argues that ecology is neither solely about global warming, recycling and solar energy, nor only about everyday relations between humans and non-humans. Rather, it is associated with love, loss, despair and compassion, depression and psychosis. It is related to capitalism and that which could come after capitalism. It is associated with doubt, confusion and scepticism. It is related to the concepts of space and time. The latter has to do with consciousness and awareness. With ideology, critique, ideas about oneself, society and coexistence.¹

In her project, Katarina Kolenc explores the phenomenon of plastic inflatable objects that people take to the beach, use for fun and perceive as something positive. On the other hand, over time, they become another hard-to-degrade plastic garbage that suffocates and destroys the planet and threatens all living beings on Earth. The contrasting placement on one side of the constricting plastic inflatable toys and on the other of the pasted photos 'on the altar', which represent modern-day worship — materialism, aims to directly show the viewer the issue described above and put a mirror to the viewer when walking through the space. Moreover, the photographs and placement in the space create a contrast between the real and unreal, although both can represent both worlds, as we decide ourselves which reality we live in.

Katarina Kolenc's placement entitled Heat Wave (part 2) is a continuation of her eponymous project which approaches mainstream tourism of spending time on the beach as a reflection of consumer society. In the continuation of the project, which touches on the topic of plastics and microplastics, she therefore included one element from the previous project – inflatable objects that we take with us to the beach. We persistently remove garbage from our horizons, which are spatial acts of transition from one side to the other, so as to maintain cleanliness and order. Out of Sight, Out of Mind. ² The principle of elimination reached its peak in the post-war era with the rise of production of ephemeral products, when goods are made precisely with the purpose of a single use. Simultaneously, T. Morton also confronts us with the occurrence of hyperobjects, such as climate change, Styrofoam, plutonium and others. These are objects that extend intensively into the dimensions of space, time and matter. How to confront the existence of materials like Styrofoam and plutonium that exist on almost unimaginable timescales? In a hundred, five hundred or a thousand years, polystyrene objects, such as food cups and other disposable packaging, will still be around.

Doroteja Erhatič, Katarina Kolenc, Nina Pernat

Katarina Kolenc (1994, Ljubljana) graduated in photography at the Faculty of Applied Sciences (VIST) in Ljubljana. Her authorial projects stem from the documentary recording of everyday moments of life and small peculiarities of her surroundings, which she later develops in the form of documentary and conceptual stories. Most often, this is a spontaneous street photography with an emphasis on human adventures and witty critique of contemporary society, which she expands by including various objects or installations. She is currently documenting environments and creating projects, which are connected to the topic of environmentalism, one way or another.

Nina Pernat (1987, Sežana) holds a BA in art history and Italian language and literature. In practice, she primarily deals with the latter at the level of randomly directing tourists around Ljubljana. Photography has always accompanied her, by hook or by crook. She is active in the wider field of culture as part of various collectives. In the last five years, she has contributed most of the photographic archive material for Reciklart festival, which in itself calls for presentation of the events of recent years to the wider public due to the fine tenth anniversary.

Doroteja Erhatič (1990, Ptuj) works in the fields of visual art and cultural heritage preservation. In 2012, she completed her studies in restoration with the thesis entitled The Impact of Stone Processing on the Durability of Its Surface, under the supervision of Jurij Smole. In 2017, she enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (ALOU) to study sculpture and other modern practices, where she obtained her MA with the thesis entitled, I Litter, Therefore I Am, in 2021, under the supervision of Alen Ožbolt and Maja Smrekar. She participated in the project to revive the student Forma Viva in Rožna dolina, where she placed a sculpture: So Much Packaging, ... (concrete, 2018). In 2019, she was the first to be selected in the Alkatraz Gallery's collaboration series with ALUO, as part of which she opened the solo exhibition May Your Time Be Long. In 2021, she received the ALUO award for her master's thesis. Moreover, in the same year, she was the first recipient of the Golden Scalpel, the Mirko Šubica award of the Society of Restorers of Slovenia. She exhibited at several group exhibitions, namely: The Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana; TRANS-FORM:ACTION; group exhibition of academies from Zagreb, Sofia, Bucharest, Skopje, Istanbul and Ljubljana (2019), Kuća Legata / Heritage House; Art Sequences, Belgrade (2019), Alkatraz Gallery, AKC Metelkova mesto; Co-l(l)abor-a(c)tion, exhibition of ALUO students (2018), Maribor, Gallery K18, Maribor; Nežka Struc, Space of Poetry (2018), Rog, Modri ​​kot, Ljubljana; Forgetmenot/Memories (2018).

[1] Morton, Timothy: The Ecological Thought, Harvard University Press, 2010, str. 2

[2] Boetzkes, Amanda: 'Plastic, Oil Culture, and the Ethics of Waste.' V: 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Politics and Culture of Waste', Christof Mauch (ur.), RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 2016.

Proof-reading (Slovene language): Sonja Benčina
Translation (to English language): Ana Makuc
Financial support: Ministry for Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City Council Ljubljana - Department for Culture, City Council Ljubljana - Youth Office and the European Union

*˝𝐹𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑣𝑖𝑒𝑤𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟(𝑠) 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝐴𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦. 𝑁𝑒𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑢𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑛𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚."



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The 10th Reciklart Festival will take place between 7 and 10 August at the Square without historical memory (in front of the Alkatraz Gallery) at the AKC Metelkova mesto in Ljubljana.