For International Academic Art Seminar Antiwar

Ana Sladetic:

Inspired by (after) wartime situation

- 10 to 15 minute lecture about my series of works: Clean&Wrong, Invisible Tent, Where is Home

The artwork Clean&Wrong and the technique in which it is executed questions purity and articulates the question of presence. Presence is an important factor of experience. Through the effect of human touch, the artwork changes its state. By touching, the observer selects the part they want to see. Proficiency before the work is required, because after a while, the transparent layer once again turns back to black and the image is once again closed in front of the observer. Cleaning and taking care of the purity of space is an invisible job. That is why in this work it is compared to the use of black, which at the same time has the qualities of a clean surface and the impurity of blackness. Black thermochromic colour becomes transparent. Transparency allows the mess to become visible. The question arises: by interfering with another person’s intimacy, do we become impure, or aware of  humanity?

그림1

The theme in work Invisible Tent is the status of refugees in Croatia. For refugees who want a better life, Croatia is just a transit country. Refugees will pass through the country and move to Austria or German seeking better opportunities. During each crisis the Croatian media creates panic and fear. Using water or drops which will flow through the canvas of white tent, one can see empty fields next to the Croatian border with Serbia (Opatovac, Tovarnik) where is going to be accommodation for refugees (the tents are rebuilt each season). The fields are devastated during the summer. Nature, and the people remain intact. The refugees only pass through here, they are not interested in staying.

그림2

In work Where is home, I questioned what has part of internal, enclosed space in which we feel good, where we live with our family, share joy and sadness.

The work consists of the etchings in light-boxes. Underneath etchings there are drawings, so viewers, if they press the lights on or off, can see both images of the etching and the drawings. Considering that is an action that changes their content. One can see a house and its surroundings, a person of no specified sex (that is combined from the portraits of a whole family) and a building, and when the state of light is changed, the contour/state of the characters in the print is changed as well. The work is inspired by the wartime situation, when my family was forced to move from our home (where we have only our memory of the real home, and we needed some kind of light to survive). The light in this work is reminiscence for hope.

그림3

Ana Sladetic Sabic, Ph.D.

assistant professor

Academy of Arts in Osijek

Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, HR

E: asladetic@uaos.hr

W: www.uaos.unios.hr

Studio: Georgijevica 3, 10430 Samobor, HR

M: +385981852158

E: contact@anasladetic.com

W: www.anasladetic.com