From 15 March to 14 April 2023

For several years now, Photon Gallery has been bringing two artists together within the framework of the so-called “Artist Dialogue”. It is mainly aimed at Slovenian artists of the younger and middle generations, but occasionally we also present emerging photo artists from Central and Eastern Europe.

This year, the “Dialogue” will again set within the context of Photon’s programmes for young photographers up to 35 years of age, namely the Different Worlds competition and the Photonic School educational programme, which we organised for the second time in 2022 together with the Centre for Creativity. In both cases, the selected artists were among the finalists of the competition (Vincent Forstenlechner among the selected ten of Different Worlds 2021 and Saša Ribič in the selection of Photonic School II, in 2022). The artists share a narrative and original approach to the use of photography and a sense of creating a particular atmosphere in their works, marked by their personal exploration of the stories they wish to convey.The series selected for the exhibition are linked to the two artists and, and through the depiction of different motifs, portraits and objects, present very unique stories into which they also bring a sense of universality through different artistic approaches.

Flight 105 (2021) by Saša Ribič is a project that, through an intimate visual interpretation of the event, revisits the tragedy of Britannia Airways flight 105, which crashed in September 1966 near the Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport. The set of photographs represents the past event, which the artist compiles by researching the forest where the plane crashed and researching data about the accident. Through the collected information, she forms logical sequences that help the viewer understand what happened. The presented photos are also part of a photo book entitled “Flight 105”.

Looking at an ever-changing familiar landscape, the long-term project ROYGBIV (2016 – 2019) by Vincent Forstenlechner focuses on the oblique and wistful feeling that occurs when I revisit my home in Austria. The series attempts to decipher what it means to feel connected and distant at the same time. Through a collection of memories and hopes, the personal relation to a place develops; however, the visual surface remains the same. ROYGBIV explores this ambiguous connection to the landscapes and personalities that are part of my experience of place. In doing so, I use photography as a tool to create my world of memory and document how this liminal space transforms with each visit. The title is an acronym for the colors of the rainbow, a visual sensation that recurred throughout the many summers I spent at home. When looking at a rainbow, the impression of the colors depends on the viewer’s position because the pattern changes slightly with each step. Therefore, no two people will ever see the same arc in the sky.