Traceback() - 2. ECOART Festival

As part of the ECOART Festival, we are opening a new group exhibition at the Y Gallery where this year's group exhibition consists of various works by six local artists of the younger generation: Sara Bezovšek, Mihe Godca, Janje Kosi, Monika Slemc Klavžar, Nejca Trampuža and Ulla Žibert.

This year's edition is entitled Traceback() and focuses primarily on invisible and visible changes related to the human environment, urbanity, nature, interconnectedness, interdependence and involvement in the socio-economic system. The works, placed in dialogue, address various issues, reflect doubts, and ask multiple questions. They address the problem of digital and physical oversaturation and refer to a suffocating present, permeated by the absolute pollution of real and virtual space. We read the artworks of many media as individual responses, or at least as the beginnings of creative thinking about our actions, our mistakes, and especially our errors.

With the near future not looking optimistic in many ways, we as a society are forced to evaluate our own choices and think about them a little more responsibly and thoughtfully. The deepening chaos is the result of too many indifferent, selfish actions and constant turning a blind eye. Environmental disasters, the collapse of civilization, and even the apocalypse have become topics of daily conversation. They accompany us at every turn, in popular culture, in art, and the indestructible mechanism of capitalism is undeniably interwoven with them.

With the chosen title, the exhibition borrows from a common programming expression or command that outputs a report and allows you to check any errors in the code. The works on display in the exhibition are consistent with the principle of learning from mistakes and returning again and again to the key questions of our quirks, our reluctant ignorance, or our radiant possibilities for redemption. Thus, each artwork defines the chosen problem in its own unique way, and they share the tension between environmental activism, pronounced cynicism, humour, and devotion to fate. Further lessons about the need for engagement and general participation in society are provided by works that address urban space, the disappearance of green spaces and communal spaces, and the abnormal proliferation of construction sites, parking lots, shopping malls, and the third landscape; mistakes that are literally happening on our doorstep.



Sara Bezovšek
Through appropriation, she creates new narratives. She is interested in what content people consume, what they share on social networks, how visual material spreads on the Internet, and how it changes and influences users in different contexts. In her collages, she illustrates human collapse and disappearance, which, as a result of oversaturation, constant construction, and exploitation, can displace resolution and the potential for a new beginning.

Miha Godec
In his artistic practice, he focuses on the development of new media projects that explore the consequences of anthropogenic impacts on aquatic ecosystems. In the installation Ex Nihilo, water reappears as a central medium. The author explores the appearance of bubbles, their use in industry, acoustic pollution of the oceans, and their acoustic effects on the human body and mind. It sheds light on what we do not pay attention to, how quickly we become indifferent and oblivious to our surroundings.

Janja Kosi
dóm -a m, city. ed. asks about the space that is needed even before the actual production space - the space that provides a roof over one's head. The artist reflects on the ever-increasing lack of space for a high quality of life, which includes green spaces, well-organized community spaces, and environmentally friendly infrastructure. She places her work in dialog with the ubiquitous construction sites and spaces of the third landscape that have recently permeated the local urban environment.

Monika Slemc Klavžar
Using motifs of distorted landscapes, she explores the complex and multi-layered relationship between man and nature, which is even more destructive in a technologically advanced, hectic society. Realistic images of the natural environment disappear in an instant, the environment and nature are beyond our control, to say the least, slipping through our fingers into a timeless abyss where humanity awaits its own defeat, disappearance and apocalypse. The artist's works are multi-layered, invading space and acting as windows into an active green environment, devoid of man and his domination.

Nejc Trumpuž
Digital collages show the possibilities, utopia and consequences of the right decisions of mankind, in which animal species do not become extinct and forests are not wiped out. They were created in the genre of solarpunk, a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on humanity's success and victory in the fight against climate change, pollution, and general destruction. They illustrate a world in which we succeed, address the possibility of a happy ending, coexistence with nature and other living things, and overcoming inequality.

Ulla Žibert
The triptych reflects the play with words and the use of minimal and simple interventions that strive for a broader meaning and lead to different readings and ambiguities. In terms of content, it refers to human ignorance and irresponsible treatment of the environment. It reverses our ambivalence of feeling guilty while favouring utopian wilderness, exotic species, and ecological justice, while at the same time throwing sand in our eyes, denying, and blaming others. This duality and tendency toward ambivalence is reinforced using shadow play.