THE END AND THE BEGINNING
OBJECTS, PROCESSES, TRAJECTORIES.
May 15th - 24th 2024
Exhibiton opening: Wednesday, May 15th, 19h
“The end and the beginning. Objects, processes, trajectories” is an exhibition showcasing the results of the workshop of the same name conceived and mentored by artist Stefano Romano through the Mobile School of Visual Arts. The workshop took place in Prostor, from 6th to 11th of May 2024.
The workshop concept was developed around the idea of deviance starting from the notion of “waste”. In common language waste is what we throw away after having consumed it or after having consumed a part of it. The more we consume, the more we produce waste.
However, waste also represents the difference, the detachment between two subjects, and it is precisely this notion of detachment and difference that was the primary focus of the workshop.
Workshop participants have been invited to walk in the city of Split and collect an object or a series of discarded objects, in order to create a new narrative on them.
On the first day, after a presentation of the themes the workshop aimed to address, the participants went to the city in search of one or more objects discarded by people, that aroused their interest for some reason. The next stage was a series of personal mentoring sessions with each participant to create new narratives around those objects, especially taking into account the gap between the object’s original function and the new symbolic guise that their intervention could give it.
It is not a question of “recycling”, but rather of “intercepting” the life cycle of a consumer object in order to transport it to another conceptual, visual and symbolic dimension. The
artworks on display in the exhibition range from fortuitous encounters between objects found along one’s daily path and photographed (Lotta Erkkilä), to stories imagined starting from the objects recovered and re-interpreted through the voice (Martina Freyja Kartelo), to the attempt to make one’s own identity interact with the collective identity generated by cheering for the local team through poetry and urban space (Daniela Koçiraj), and to the recovery and visualisation of a collective and personal historical memory at the same time (Luka Matulić).
Lotta Erkkilä
The Unexpected Encounters
During my daily path in Split, my attention was often drawn to different objects that were not expected to be found in that context or environment. I realized these objects only caught my attention because there were some unexpected dichotomies creating whole new narratives.
Eleven of the photos are captured randomly, exactly as found, while one of them is a created situation from found objects.
Daniela Koçiraj
Fragmented - Joints of a Human
Split has many identifiable elements and aspects of community that represent it and unite the city. Undeniably, the local football team “HNK Hajduk Split” is one of the pillars of this connection; being worshiped and adored as if it was a religion.
The broken glass, a “Hajduk” logo, bricks abandoned near homes, all of these make up the spaces and entity of the city. There is a deep sense of belonging, the freedom of being expressive.
But how can you speak, let alone create using something that is but a stranger to you? Maybe I can’t bring Split and Croatia to myself, but I can bring pieces of myself, and leave them here to continue their own legacy. Maybe one day they’ll have stronger roots than ever anticipated. Poetry on glass, glass on bricks, streets roamed but never learned, them, you, me. All of it fits as a puzzle piece, dying to be complete.
Luka Matulić
Materialization of a memory
Particles are, in the world of science, a basic element from which everything is made, a material world, a matter. What if we use the term in a context of more abstract world like a world of memories. What is a particle in someone’s memory? Could we “translate” it and put it back in the physical world? Is it an object? During this workshop, I chose an old power socket, found on a trail in southern Split near the city center, as a particula. It is a ceramic socket, presumably an original one and not a “vintage” replica considering the condition and location in which it was found. At another place I found nine pieces of broken pencils, surrounded by traces of child play. Using the old power socket as a symbol of an older generation, and pieces of pencils as a symbol of a younger generation, I “merge” the two of them in this concept where the old socket is a particula for someone’s memory and the pencils as a representation of the one who has been triggered. Following the concept, the pencils found are used to recreate the old power socket as a drawing which represents the revival of memory.
Martina Freyja Kartelo
City stories
We do live in times of capitalism and consumerism.
This is not something new.
I would like to talk about five themes that relate deeply to our lives inside capitalism andconsumerism through some objects I randomly found in the streets of Split.
The project is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia. The project is part of the "Deviation" program that the Platform "Culture Hub Croatia" is implementing during 2024 as part of the creative hub Prostor. The work of the Platform "Culture Hub Croatia" is supported by the National Foundation for the Development of Civil Society and the Kultura nova Foundation.
