Polonca Lovšin: Back to the city

Back to the city is an independent retrospective exhibition of works created by the author over the past nine years. The exhibition comprises parts of her artistic production, including environment- and everyday-inventions, video-animations founded on city and countryside research, and a series of dynamo projects. In spite of this division, the works are inter-connected and focus on the research of environment, infrastructure, temporary architectural solutions and individual alternative approaches to these issues. The emphasis of the exhibition is a video-animation Back to the city (2011), created on the basis of a long-term research on bees, thematizing mostly man's attitude towards the environment, food, and nature in cities and in the countryside. With the method of stop-motion animation, based on collages, the author has created a story about bees, pollination, food, and man’s attitude towards these. This animation forms part of an arrangement of works, presented through the use of a video-animation method, whereby statistical data, as well as historical and physical facts and the legislation are incorporated into a humor-spiced narrative. Two of the author’s bestsellers will also be exhibited, Zakaj so slovenske hiše videti takole (Why Slovenian houses look the way they do) (2007), linking the personal story of her parents to the issue of self-build houses and the legislation, and Krave iz mesta (City Cows) (2008), created as a result of research about the fate of existing farms in the town of Ljubljana.

Her inventions and dynamo projects stand for inventive and sometimes absurd solutions to alternative energetic problem issues. Objects are accompanied by videos, photos and drawings, explaining the objects and demonstrating how they work. These projects are the foundation to the series of dynamo projects connecting public space, group performance and technologies. The participating volunteers led by a dance choreographer in a group performance, produce electricity. Dinamo ples z vrati (Dynamo door dance) (Cambridge, 2009), Dinamo ulična svetilka (Dynamo street lamp) (Ljubljana, 2010) in Naelektrene sanje (Electrified dreams) (Gera, 2011) are three projects following this idea, with some differences in the execution.

The exhibition is accompanied by the release of a trilingual catalogue Polonca Lovšin, Back to the City / Nazaj v mesto / Zurück in die Stadt, published under Revolver Publishing from Berlin. The publication was supported by ACE KIBLA, the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. institute, KUD Obrat and Kunstverein Gera from Germany, where Lovšin had a solo presentation in May 2011. The catalogue is a retrospective of several years of her work and includes art-work concepts, video-stories, and an interview with Silke Opitz, German curator and editor of the publication.

Polonca Lovšin (1970) is an architect and an artist. She is currently finishing her PhD in visual arts at the University Of Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. In her works she focuses on alternative ways of living and acting, with an emphasis on using the individual. A common thread of her inventions, videoanimations and research projects is ecology. Recently she has particularly focused on the dividing line between the town and the countryside. She is co-author of publications Ready to Change (2003) and Ready 2 Change (2005), with Urška Jurman. She is also co-founder of the art association Obrat (2006), propelling the project Onkraj gradbišča (Beyond Construction Site) (2010, still in progress).

Lovšin’s solo presentations were at Space for art Kibela in Maribor (2011), Kunstverein Gera, Germany (2011), Wysing Arts Centre Cambridge (2009), P74 Gallery (2009) and Gallery A+A, Venice (2006). Attended many group exhibitions at home and abroad: U3, 6^th triennial of contemporary art in Slovenia: An idea for living, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana (2010), European Triennial of Small-scale Sculpture, Split identities; Objects at the interstice of art and design, Gallery Murska Sobota (2010), Raziskovalci / Forschers (Researchers), Silberraum Schute (Maknete), Hamburg, Germany (2008), Slovenian art 1995–2005, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana (2005), Ready 2 Change, P74 Center and Gallery, Ljubljana (2004), e-flux video rental, New York, (2004).
Lovšin is the winner of ‘Zlata ptica 2010’ award for visual and intermedia art, as well as a number of scholarships and residencies: working scholarship by the Slovenian Ministry of Culture (2009), residency scholarship of the Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridge, UK (2009) and residency scholarship of CEC ArtsLink in New York/San Francisco (2006).

Opening: September 23^rd 2011 at 8pm

KiBela / KIBLA Maribor

KiBela, space for art, is open on weekdays between 9am and 10pm, Saturdays between 4pm and 10pm, closed on Sundays.

Supported by: EU-EACEA; Culture program, Brussels; Slovenian Ministry of Culture; Municipality of Maribor; Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Youth