July 12 – July 23, 2010

Marina Gržinić, Zvonka Simčič, Aina Šmid

Galerija Photon, Centre for Contemporary Photography Ljubljana

The exhibition »Who is to live and who should die?« brings together two artistic positions. One is Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid, who have been working together for 28 years, the other is Zvonka Simčič, who has been active in the art scene for the last 20 years. Gržinić and Šmid present their new  work »Naked Freedom«, Zvonka Simčič her new work »The InVisible and Forgotten«. The exhibition connects digital media, theory, activism and performativity.
MARINA GRŽINIĆ  and AINA ŠMID

Naked Freedom, video, 19.27 min, 2010

Screenplay and directed by Marina Gržinić and Aina Šmid

Text in the video by Marina Gržinić

Performers: Nika Rozman, Sara Badovinac, Emina Djukič, Dejan Koban, Kobrowsky, Blanka Slana, Katja Škorič and Ugo Ugowsky

Animation: Siniša Ilić

Coproduction: Mladinski center Medvode

Production: CCC, Ljubljana
The video “Naked Freedom” that connects Ljubljana, Belgrade, Durham (USA) presents a conceptual political space of engagement that allows for rethinking what local community is. It conceptualizes the possibility of rethinking financial capitalism and its financialization processes that permeate art, the social, the political and the critical discourses. The collective process of making the video “Naked Freedom” is about enactment of social, political and perfomative practices. It is a collective performance for the screen that resonates with performers off screen lives.  In Ljubljana an actress and 7 young activists, musicians, poets, members of the Youth Center Medvode, a small town near Ljubljana, discuss capitalism, colonialism, education, and the power of art as a possibility for politics.

In Belgrade, Siniša Ilić, artist and performer, deconstructs violence (from heteronormative to nationalistic) and is a connector between different spaces within the realm of culture, art and activism.

The last part of the video re-questions its locality through a discourse on globality and the EU. It presents an exchange in between Marina Gržinić and Kwame Nimako. They met at the Workshop on Education, Development, Freedom, at Duke University, Durham,  USA, organized by the Center for Global studies (25 to 27 February 2010), notably by Walter Mignolo.  Kwame Nimako is theoretician from Ghana who lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is in charge of NiNsee, Amsterdam (The National Institute for the Study of Dutch Slavery and its Legacy).

ZVONKA SIMČIČ

I Have Decided Not TO Die // video-photographic installation

Zvonka T Simčič s works are primarily concerned with the social space and how she experiences it. She lays emphasis on human life, exploring its social and political implications and unveiling the unsaid facts of human society while searching at one and the same time possibilities of creating “new spaces.”

The project “I Have Decided Not TO Die” encourages reflection on the most outstanding situations produced by capitalism whose product is we, (wage and invisible) workers, contemporary slaves and beggars. Capitalism has deprived us of the future. It has destroyed millions of lives! We as artists, too, have found ourselves in the same mixture of the power of capital, “slaves” of apparently important bureaucracy. The artist poses the question of what is a social state and what are our chances to survive? As Marina Gržinić says, “To let live today means that one is allowed to live, if they can, but if they can’t, they won’t be “killed”, and even less helped or given the possibility of a better life.”

The theoretical-critical-activistic platform established by the artist by means of
the video and photographs represents the statements of critical positions of Vesna Leskošek, Tanja Rener and Magda Šmon. These positions are connected through the artist’s performance in a whole of various media and discourses.

The exhibition is supported by: Ministry of culture of Republic of Slovenia, Municipality of Medvode

Special thanks to: Borut Mauhler, Justina Simčič, Tanja Passoni, Sebastjan Leban, Tatjana Greif, Nataša Velikonja, Tanja Rener, Vesna Leskošek, Magda Šmon, Evelin Stermitz, Nataša Pust, Ženski pevski zbor Kombinat, Coro delle mondine di Novi di Modena, Bojan Radovič.

Coproduction: Galerija Photon

Production: Zavod CCC

Opening: Monday, July 12 at 8 pm!

From July 12 until July 23, 2010