Light installation

 

The space of the Mediation installation consists of two different – and conflicting – time placements, interpreted in their material exclusivism. Natural hair is presented as a subject of the past, of the primordial, of the primal, and creates a presence of darkness. On the other hand, the space is filled with light, reinforced by the reflection in the foil, the technologic material functioning as the memory of the future. This relation is being established also both on a tactile and visual level. The visitor enters a space which is not created by a fictional reality, but the reality itself, the reality of the material that puts the visitor’s experience to the fore. It’s not just about the gazing experience and the safety in distance from the material, but the reality of a touch, the reality of biological material. Of acceptance or rejection. This spatial installation emphasizes the touch, increasingly disappearing in the era of virtual and data handling. The times we’re living in have extremely minimalized the touch, precisely the one that acts as a way of perception and communication and creates “the visual” and “the real” even in a total absence of light. The visitor’s entry into the space, into the art work itself, further emphasizes this additional dimension of the touch. The artwork itself – due to its limitation in size, or, in other words, the smallness of space the visitor is entering – touches the visitor. It’s all about the touch of the touching that puts the visitor in a completely new and an uncertain position as well.

 

ELENA FAJT graduated from Textile Design at the Department of Textiles at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Ljubljana, where she now works as an assistant professor, and later furthered her studies in Vienna, Austria, and in Denmark. She’s created many solo and group designer projects, theatre and movie costumographies and participated in various artistic residencies home and abroad. She’s been working on a continuous series of projects called Lasnine/Hairsense, exploring the aesthetic, symbolic and cultural meanings of hair.

Opening times: Tuesday–Sunday, 13.00–21.00. Until 12th July. 

Coproduction: ŠKUC