Opening hours:
Monday - Friday:2pm - 6pm
Monday - Friday:2pm - 6pm
31 July 2026 > 28 August 2026 Join us at the exhibition entitled "Reciklart Art Colony: Food Overabundance and Food Scarcity" at the Alkatraz Gallery, ACC Metelkova mesto. The exhibition will unfold as a process: visitors will be able to witness the collaborative project of creating the exhibition and the development of the artworks, starting 31 July, every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The exhibition will be fully installed on Friday, 7 August, 2026, at 6:00 p.m., and accompanied by an event and refreshments. On Monday, 10 August, 2026, visitors are also invited to a young artist-led tour at 6:30 p.m. and on Friday 28 August to yet another exhibition tour.
This year's 12th edition of Reciklart festival shall take place between 31 July and 28 August. Again, we meet at the Square with No Historical Memory (in front of the Alkatraz Gallery) at Metelkova in Ljubljana! The central theme of this year's festival is abundance and scarcity; once again, it shall serve as the framework for various workshops, exhibitions and lectures, as well as evening concerts, performances, circus acts and much more. As part of the festival, you are kindly invited to the opening of the exhibition entitled Reciklart Art Colony: Food Overabundance and Food Scarcity at the Alkatraz Gallery, AKC Metelkova Mesto. The exhibition will unfold as a process: the visitors will be able to witness the collaborative project of creating the exhibition and works of art. From 31 July onwards, the gallery will be open to visitors daily, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The placement will be completed on Friday, 7 August 2026 at 6 p.m., and accompanied by an event as well as refreshments, whilst on Monday, 10 August 2026, and on Friday, 28 August 2026, you can join a guided tour led by students and young artists at 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., respectively.
The art colony will take place the second time. After last year's well-received edition, this year's event will feature an exchange between Slovene and Slovakian fine arts students. The first part of the exchange will take place at Reciklart festival in Ljubljana, and the second in Košice in the spring of 2027. During the week leading up to the festival, the students will produce works of art that will be on display throughout the festival and until 28 August. Aleksandar Božić, Oto Hudec and Erik Sikora will collaborate as mentors on the project.
Food as the driving force of life, as something that connected people to nature and the earth most closely in the past, has gradually, and in the last years, exponentially, become a consumer good, something that exists in the world in which there is an abundance of food for some and scarcity for others. This is the world in which food is a commodity, a part of the neoliberal regime, where profit dictates the entire process of its production, processing and distribution. This is the world in which land and human labour are being exploited (especially the labour of those in the global south), increasingly under the guise of sustainability. We forget that food often travels great distances before it lands on our plates, that food is perceived as a product, a marketable, attractive object, packed in plastic, which survives on the shelves for much longer than nature intended. But especially, we forget that masses of people strive to oppose such a system and that, of course, there exist good practices we can all learn from.
All of this and more informs this exhibition, in which fine arts students and other young artists tackle such complex themes in diverse ways through the exchange of experiences from different cultural environments. We will be able to view works of art created collaboratively through the exploration of various procedures and media, familiarise ourselves with what food and its coexistence of abundance and scarcity actually represents for society today, and see the ways in which the artists can integrate their own practices with this topic. An important part of the process is also the fusion and transformation of artistic practices into everyday activism, as well as reflection on the ways in which, in a world where even something as fundamental and important as food is held hostage by capital and human greed, can become a source of health, care and well-being for everyone, not just a select few.
Nina Pernat
Aleksandar Božić (BA Graphic Design, Prof. of Fine Arts, Academy of Arts in Novi Sad) returned to the field of arts and culture after 15 years of working in the field of digital product design. As a visual artist, he explores the media of classical and digital drawing, screen printing and lithography, which has so far introduced him to the Slovenian and Croatian public. In the last two years, he has participated as a designer in several projects and festivals in Slovenia and Serbia. Under the name Kunstleraj (ex. Ustvarjallajalla) he runs art workshops and organises exhibitions, mainly in the premises of Jalla Jalla AKC Metelkova mesto, but also in other spaces in Metelkova, Ljubljana and festivals around Slovenia.
Oto Hudec is an associate professor and head of the painting studio at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Technical University of Košice. He is an internationally renowned visual artist, whose work focuses on socially engaged art, environmental themes and interdisciplinary artistic practices. He has extensive experience leading participatory art projects involving students, youth, communities and international partners. His teaching approach emphasises experimentation in the media of painting, sculpture, video and performance. With his project, he represented the Slovak Republic in the national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024. With his artistic and academic activities, he has contributed to numerous exhibitions and public presentations in Slovakia and abroad, as well as to educational initiatives and student exhibitions.
Erik Sikora is a video artist, musician and teaching assistant at the Studio for New Media and Photography at FU TUKE. In his artistic practice, he focuses on the experimental video, multimedia performance and sonic art. He is a multimedia artist, musician, video artist and performer, whose work encompasses video essays, DIY projects, live performances and music under the artistic name Džumelec. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and is currently teaching new media and photography. His artistic practice often combines humour, experimental video and performative lectures with environmental topics.
The exhibition Reciklart Art Colony is part of the 12th Reciklart Festival.
