4 October – 8 November 2013

Following the tradition of documentary photography Borut Peterlin’s The Great Depression series of photographs records visual iconography of deep economic crisis in the years 2012 and 2013. These are the motifs of deserted industrial landscape and empty manufacturing halls of factories that have bankrupted and therefore they don’t serve their purpose anymore. The artist has focused mainly on images of recently abandoned spaces depicting traces of human presence and reflecting (often very emotional) relation of former employees to their workspace. Produced in the technique of wet collodion plate, the photographs refer to the identical social and economic situation, the great recession of 1912-1913, that was taking place hundred years ago in the western world and led into the bloodbath of the World War I. By using vintage photographic processes he indicates brevity of historical memory and the cyclical nature of the history. Every generation, he says, is thus confident that the repetition of history will not happen. The Great Depression series has begun in artist’s immediate surroundings, in Novo Mesto, where he documented recently abandoned Novoles factory complex, and has continued with examining and recording related phenomena in the wider region.

Borut Peterlin (1974) is a professional photographer and an artist who lives and works in Novo mesto. He graduated at Academy of Fine Arts FAMU in Prague in 1998, and continued his after-graduate studies at London College of Printing where he graduated in 2003. For several years he worked as photographer and photo editor for Mladina weekly magazine, he was the initiator, organiser and programme manager of the Fotopub, festival of documentary photography in Novo mesto, while he is freelance photographer collaborating with number of international agencies. In the field of art and documentary photography he gained recognition with several projects and series: 5 AM (1998), Flower Power (2006-2011), Strojan Roma Family (2007) andTour de Dayton (2011).