project: Barricades

I first graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (Slovenia). Coming to the Piet Zwart Institute (WdKA) after my BA studies, almost only experience I had with lens-based media was 2D (frame-by-frame) animation. First, I envisaged my work to develop in this direction. However, the photography-oriented thematic projects within the course largely influenced my fascinations. Thus, I began exploring (analogue) photography rather than diving into animation.

graduation project: Barricades

The subject of my graduation work are the barricades from the ‘’10-day war’’ for Slovenia (1991) which have become overgrown with ivy and shrubs. They are remnants of the war I didn’t live and know little about. Being born in 1995, I have no personal memories so the barricades seem like forgotten monuments.

geometry & form

Geometric bodies roughly dropped by the road now form dynamic diagonals and sculptural clusters. I produced a photographic series. Then, in seeking a more personal approach to the subject, I made drawings – graphic representations of barricades’ details and filled a small sketchbook with various compositions.

photograph – index – frottage

Discussing the photograph as an index led me to make frottages. I then photographed the drawings and constructed a digital collage. The process revealed a different perspective on the object – it is a direct translation from a three-dimensional body to a two-dimensional plane. The action of frottaging resonates with forensic quality of photography. As if the time was a sediment compressed in one layer, flattened in a drawing. The process exposes the texture and its ‘flaws’. It echoes my fascination for surfaces and the concepts present throughout my practice: drawing, photography, subjective vs. objective image, trace, index, abstraction.