Curator
Jernej Čuček Gerbec
I can’t, leave me alone! I’d rather be on a beach, watching the sun set into the sea. Perhaps I’d drift over to a picnic and then we’d gorge ourselves on grapes and sip homemade iced tea while dipping breadsticks into hummus. Carefree, with the wind in my hair, on a road with no destination. I’d sit in a car in some city-centre car park with the engine running. Without any regards for the overpriced petrol slowly burning away for no reason. I’d stand in the middle of the night in front of a closed kiosk, lost in thought with no solution. Longing for something I don’t need and do so without a care in the world.
I simply yearn for the thoughts to stop chasing me, for the anxiety to finally grow tired of pursuing me. I would switch off all my devices, disconnect from all the news, and simply ban newspapers altogether. I would shut my eyes if only I could. In truth, I would do none of this. I don’t know whether I long for childhood, or whether I merely long for some imagined time when the geopolitical climate was calmer. It’s understandable that, amid an influx of information and bad news, it becomes difficult to focus on our own lives as the core of being someone who just wants normality. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
The exhibition and its concept were conceived before the latest dreadful news (which news? in truth, it doesn’t matter). It stems from a simple question: how are we to take care of ourselves? Of course, it is understandable that an individual feels obliged to contribute to society; likewise, within the cultural sector, the impulse to hold a mirror up to society and address the wider public with activist or socially critical content is entirely valid and appropriate. So, where and how does the individual enter the equation? Every individual and their struggles, as well as the artist and their personal circumstances? How do we regard personal experience? Where, then, is there room to explore everything else? And finally, how do practices that appear non-political fit into this context?
The second exhibition within the SKRB series turns inward this time, towards artists and their practices. Its field of inquiry and the production of new meanings shift towards self-care and artistic practices that place personal experience at the forefront. It represents a conscious move away from global politics and direct social critique, with the intention of entering the apolitical. An oxymoron, since such a deliberate stance is itself a political position, one that highlights the extent to which everything concerns us. Hence the desire to withdraw and take a break from it all, and the desire for a pause and a glance beyond everything that, day after day, leaves us anxious, stressed, and burdened with worry.
The exhibition space is taken over by seemingly carefree photographs by Iva Suhadolnik Gregorin. The series emerged as a departure from existing institutional frameworks within the cultural field and evolved into a personal story. Within it, the artist emphasises tensions between work and non-work in a society that views disengagement as something negative. In such a society, idleness is understood as wrong or undesirable, whereas the artist interprets it as an act of resistance or even a civic duty, a counterpoint to the capitalist obsession with (constant) production. i did an artist residency with my boyfriend of six years, the girl who broke my heart in august and her best friend (2024) is, at its core, precisely what the title suggests: a self-organised artist residency in which the boundaries between professional collaboration and the personal began to blur. The result is a personal story, recorded in subtle photographs which, through a performative act, become something more. It serves as a reminder of the competitiveness within the field of art, a reminder that one must allow oneself certain things, and—through a web of circumstances—a reminder that life always happens somewhere in between.
At the opening, a performance by Parsa Kamehkhosh will take place, gradually leaving traces throughout the gallery, while recordings and excerpts in video form will also be introduced. For years, the artist has persistently developed his practice through performative gestures, often repetitive in nature. His interventions are methodically prepared, conceived, considered, and planned, yet they only truly come into being within a specific space and moment in time. The given environment, the audience, and the objects involved become part of a whole that shapes a particular shared experience, through which the space is imbued with a spirit or energy formed between tension and release. In this sense, performance is not a spectacle, but a tool that anchors us, on a subtle, perhaps subconscious, level, to the present moment. It is about the idea of radical presence, of existing within a particular instant where soul and thought converge, at least unconsciously. This particular performance will attempt to sustain and transfer the energy generated during its execution into the space itself. Carefully positioned objects will act as a lasting echo, inviting individuals to pause and experience the present beyond the frameworks of everyday life.
Together, the works address our presence, and the need for time to disconnect and turn inward. They exist somewhere between sitting on a beach in the evening and having a Sunday morning coffee on a balcony, when we can allow ourselves to forget about work and other worries, when our thoughts drift into contemplation of nothing at all. The exhibition does not seek to persuade visitors that one should live carefreely or that political action is meaningless; rather, it illuminates something that may already feel lost. Normality as a default state, normality as an individual’s right to a dignified life. Sometimes, things must be fought for: we must choose to take a break, to remain in the moment and experience it in full detail. We must remind ourselves why we are angry, why we stand by our positions, why we are socially critical, and why we support activism. We care, but we are already on the brink of burnout.
(Jernej Čuček Gerbec)
in neutral / idle
Parsa Kamehkhosh is a performance artist and designer currently residing in Helsinki, Finland. His practice explores the matter of “being in the world” in the context of the interaction between daily life and the notion of life on the existential level. He often employs objects and materials as manifestations of contemporary human everyday aesthetics and in relation to various narratives that define the position of humans in the universe and beyond. His works manoeuvre on the borders of the inner and external worlds, natural and supernatural, seen and unseen.
His art spans various media, with a primary focus on performance art, and has been showcased predominantly in Europe, West Asia, and the US. His fascination with materials, objects, and everyday aesthetics led him to pursue studies in industrial design at Tehran University of Fine Arts, followed by further exploration in Aesthetics and Meaning-making at Konstfack College of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Stockholm, and Visual Culture, Curating, and Contemporary Arts at Aalto University.
Iva Suhadolnik Gregorin is a conceptual and visual artist, who lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her artistic practice researches questions of labour, gender, identity and power structures. Through performance, participative performance, it’s documentation and photography she strives to connect these issues to their context. She merges her emotional and personal landscape with the political, arguing they are undeniably intertwined. Her practice serves as an opportunity to create temporary spaces that emerge as invitations for emancipation and (or) a catalyst for dismantling the work ethic.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from the Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) in Ljubljana. Since 2020 she has been working with film photography which was joined by performance shorty after. Sensitivity and honesty serve as both the foundation of her practice and the lens through which she perceives and engages with the world. She places great importance on uncovering the inner workings of performance and photography as art forms.
