Tanja Verlak reopened the ZOO (2004-2006) series as part of artistic research at the Museum of Contemporary Photography – MoCP, where she held a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2021.

‘Zoo is a series of black and white photographs from the Balkans to northern Wales. It touches upon the notion of freedom and our relationship towards it. Visiting the zoos was a profound experience, making me look at the animals, whose solitude was deeply disturbing; although the animals behind the bars were well looked after, the transparent cages expose the controversial power relations all the more.’

Tanja Verlak, The Most Beautiful Place in the World (or How the Idea of Arbitrage Failed) – Contemporary Slovenian Photography, Hrvatski fotosavez, Zagreb, 2016

Sandra Križić Roban described the series of black and white photographs as ‘extremely serious and melancholic’, where it is ‘no longer [about] places of wonder or cabinets of curiosities, but about cold, neglected and confined spaces which speak of our relationship with nature as a cultural construct. The consequences and reach of such ‘culture’ are devastating. The photographs are not only a criticism of the system that allows such treatment but also a demonstration of man’s inability to remember his former connection with the world of nature, to which he cultivated himself and formed his further activities.’

The Most Beautiful Place in the World (or How the Idea of Arbitrage Failed) – Contemporary Slovenian Photography, Hrvatski fotosavez, Zagreb, 2016