The Rhizome team enters the archive of the project Testing Ground: Reparative Practices for New Cultural Ecosystem in search of triggers that it writes into new artistic projects of authors Maja Bojanić, Hrvoslava Brkušić, Nadia Markiewicz, Fette Sans and curator Lea Vene. In the format of an audio walk, performance, open rehearsal and work room, the artists open up their artistic work processes as a form of dialogue between the above-mentioned archive and personal projects initiated outside of this context.
Maja Bojanić invites us on an audio expedition through the wild ecology of Pogon’s space, corroded by mould and dampness. Nadia Markiewicz investigates anomalies in the rose family in order to revive her own ballad about a mutant rose through her performance. Hrvoslava Brkušić dives into the Yugofuturist research of the archive about Veda Zagorac (one of the founders of the Museum of African Art in Belgrade) and her life in Africa. With Fette Sans, we follow the protagonist of her new film through an open rehearsal examining the relationship between the director and the leading actress.
Four emergent site-specific artistic positions openly speak about individual artistic methodologies and possible reparative models of artistic action.
(Lea Vene)
In the framework of Repair project, the members of team Rhizome developed four new works that were presented live in Zagreb at Pogon Jedinstvo, as part of Exposium program. The digital results of their working proccesses can be viewed below.
Hrvoslava Brkušić: Veda Zagorac (working title)
installation / study
Hrvoslava Brkušić delves into a Yugofuturist exploration of archival material about Veda Zagorac (one of the founders of the Museum of African Art in Belgrade) and her life in Africa. The artist recreates a workspace filled with research materials collaged from private photo albums, a variety of visual and textual traces, and archival fragments that reference artifacts and the spaces in which they were collected. Hrvoslava’s own experience of travel in Africa and fragments of her unfinished travel films are interwoven with Veda’s personal archive. Veda’s private life is inseparable from her museological mission, and this exploration opens a space for artistic translation and synchronization with Veda’s energy and vision.
my journey plus veda
With every step on unfamiliar ground, we open new chapters of our inner world. Our perception changes subtly but indelibly – we become part of what we observe and breathe. For a moment, we become the earth, the air, the sky. For a moment, we adopt the rhythm of life flowing through the streets before us, adjusting to its pulse.
As we walk, we absorb the movement of the city – we gauge the crowd, listen to the sounds, and anticipate the direction. Our stride becomes a dance, and the traffic an orchestra. The horns are not warnings but invitations to harmonize, as the streets breathe their own rhythm. Memories bring to life images that feel both chaotic and harmonious: overcrowded vehicles, pyramids of bodies on motorbikes, buses without seats, trucks towering like skyscrapers. Every street tells a story, and every passerby becomes a frame.
Life bustles along the roads—fruit, shoes, tools, animals galloping in herds. One image stands out: a van overloaded with sacks, a man standing on the roof, the sacks towering over him, and he, motionless, gazes into the distance. Another scene: three people on a motorbike, with a double mattress wedged between them. A child sits in front, while the woman at the back stares absently behind her. These are fragments of everyday life, the essence of living in motion.
How has Veda’s perception changed over her years in Africa? How have her photographs evolved chronologically? Can the novice gaze, unshaped by experience, ever compare?
What is it about the unknown that captivates us?
The chance passersby? The street motifs? The vibrant patterns? The landscapes?
How do we read landscapes we have never experienced?
Keywords
Fette Sans: I Passed the Stage of Disappointment Long Ago
video, installation, performance
I passed the stage of disappointment long ago by the artist Fette Sans marks the first chapter of her new work which deals with the multiple performance of female roles on and off-screen. Fette Sans’s wider artistic practice dissolves the fixed roles of performer and spectator, front and back stage, online and offline presence. This open-stage rehearsal-situation is accompanied with work in progress film fragments focused on the main protagonist (Zora Bjelousov) roaming empty public spaces and abandoned hotel interiors. She navigates the directed environments, performs, doubles and improvises different versions of encountered selves. These scattered film snippets reenter the open rehearsal format as a multilayered dialogue between the actress and director disrupting the imposed film and theater setting.
Credits:
Concept: Fette Sans
Written and directed by: Fette Sans
Performed by and developed in collaboration of Zora Bjelousov, Jasna Givens and Fette Sans
Music and sound design: Philipp Wüschner
Light design: Fette Sans and Jasmin Dasović
Technical coordination and suppot: Jasmin Dasović
performance script
FOTO: Fette Sans
I Passed the Stage of Disappointment Long Ago, video
Video credits:
Written and directed by Fette Sans
Performed by Zora Bjelousov
Camera: Jasna Givens
Additional camera: Fette Sans
Editing and sound: Fette Sans
Piano and singing: Philipp Wüschner
Nadia Markiewicz: Ballad of the Withering Rose
performance
The Ballad of the Withering Rose by Nadia Markiewicz is part of an ongoing research about the anomalies in rose cultivation. Mutant roses inhabit interiors, they overgrow walls and establish a new natural order.
Extracted from an imaginary garden, a single oversized deviant rose intimidates and fascinates the gaze. In full bloom she migrates from the flat surface onto a performing body. The anthropomorphic rose appears on stage, alive and grieving an recent loss of her dear friend, who appears in the form of a moon. She surrenders to gentle and slow decay.
Credits:
Concept: Nadia Markiewicz
Written, directed and performed by: Nadia Markiewicz
Directorial support: Łukasz Ronduda, Filip Pawlak
Dramaturgy and final direction: Szymon Adamczak
Light director: Sebastian Klim
Costume production: Wisła Nicieja
Music: Marcel Pieczonka
Scent: Alchembot
Voice coach: Agnieszka Kocińska
Technical coordination and support: Jasmin Dasović
Maja Bojanić: HIC SVNT DRACONES, no actually mld
participatory site-specific expedition
HIC SVNT DRACONES, no actually mld is a performative audio expedition that uncovers the speculative history of mold and moisture within the space of Pogon Jedinstvo. This work builds on the artist’s ongoing research within the project The Institute for Mold Preservation, a fictional institution dedicated to preserving newly discovered mold species. In the aftermath of floods and rains, the audience is invited to explore, detect, and imagine an underground world of moisture filled with intense olfactory stimuli.
Credits:
Concept, research and direction: Maja Bojanić
Expedition guide: Maja Bojanić
Technical coordination and suppot: Jasmin Dasović
Audio version of the expedition (bulit in combination of Maja’s voice and AI):