Sara Bezovšek: Life is like the ocean

SARA BEZOVŠEK
Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down
March 17 —
May 20, 2023

LOCATION
RAVNIKAR GALLERY
Vošnjakova ulica 4
1000 Ljubljana

CURATOR
ETC.

PHOTOGRAPHER
Mario Zupanov

︎︎︎STATEMENT

In her artistic practice, visual artist Sara Bezovšek creates visually saturated images by appropriating online material and examining what people look at and share on social media, how visuals are transmitted around the internet, how these visuals are influenced by different contexts and how they impact people. In doing so, she highlights the fact that online content and online references have become a consistent and indispensable part of the world we live in.

In the exhibition Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down the artist presents new works in the form of collages, which are the result of a long process of collecting and editing photographs and emoticons that she came across while browsing the web. By collaging found photographs, creating natural and urban landscapes and incorporating emoticons, she is graphically recording a variety of events, at once familiar and alien to the viewer in their proportions and unusual combinations. In the images of the sea, plants and the urban environment, as well as in the uplift into the mountain and even outer space world, it is possible to search for and pay attention to details and to unravel narratives hidden in the bigger picture.

In addition to the collages, the exhibition also includes an interactive website named SND (Introduction to Nature and Society – a common subject in Slovenian elementary schools) and screen recordings of its subpages, which plucks its visitors from their idyllic starting position and leads them through possible futures of our planet – natural catastrophes such as floods, droughts, earthquakes, fires and tsunamis, overpopulation, ice ages, worldwide pandemics, alien invasions, nuclear explosions, meteor strikes, and other potential apocalyptic scenarios. The content that the artist has found online, e.g. short videos, clips from popular films and TV series, memes, photographs, GIFs, pop culture references, emojis and hyperlinks to various articles, forms a complex and visually saturated narrative which follows the premise of a typical Hollywood film. In the nooks and crannies of her online project, there are numerous additional links and other content that visitors to the site can use for their own exploration of given topics and for choosing their own paths that can lead them to a variety of different futures for humankind. SND is an ongoing project and currently encompasses multiple subsites/videos with titles such as You Are Here, Human Extinction, False Utopia, Overpopulation, Evacuate Earth, Nuclear Winter and Through the Wormhole. In an era marked by doomscrolling, conspiracy theories, climate change-related anxiety and political tensions, in which we often question our way of life and wonder about our existence in the future, SND uses the medium of the website to depict the general feeling of unease and helplessness that we experience whenever we see what is going on in the world.

︎︎︎ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sara Bezovšek (1993) is a visual artist focused on new media, experimental film and graphic design, in which she also holds an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, among others in Ljubljana at the Aksioma project space, Kamera in Kino Šiška, Osmo/za, sloART, DobraVaga, P74 and SCCA-Ljubljana, online in Feral File, in Maribor at Kiblix and MFRU, and in Koper at IZIS. SND has been showcased at the online biennial The Wrong Biennale and on the online platform Do Not Research. She was the recipient of the Prešeren Award for Students in 2018 and was nominated for the OHO Young Artist Award in 2022. She received the main award at the Ljubljana Short Film Festival (FeKK) for one of her short films in 2021 and the Vesna award for the best Slovenian experimental film in 2022. In 2023Sara Bezovšek (1993) is a visual artist focused on new media, experimental film and graphic design, in which she also holds an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. She has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, among others in Ljubljana at the Aksioma project space, Kamera in Kino Šiška, Osmo/za, sloART, DobraVaga, P74 and SCCA-Ljubljana, online in Feral File, in Maribor at Kiblix and MFRU, and in Koper at IZIS. SND has been showcased at the online biennial The Wrong Biennale and on the online platform Do Not Research. She was the recipient of the Prešeren Award for Students in 2018 and was nominated for the OHO Young Artist Award in 2022. She received the main award at the Ljubljana Short Film Festival (FeKK) for one of her short films in 2021 and the Vesna award for the best Slovenian experimental film in 2022. In 2023 she is working on a project for the research platform [permanent beta] of the Swiss gallery fotomuseum winterthur.

SARA BEZOVŠEK: Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down

Vizualna umetnica Sara Bezovšek v svoji umetniški praksi z apropriacijo spletnega materiala ustvarja vizualno nasičene podobe, pri čemer razmišlja, kaj ljudje gledajo in delijo na družbenih omrežjih, kako vizualni material potuje po internetu ter kako se v različnih kontekstih spreminja in vpliva na uporabnike. S tem izpostavlja dejstvo, da so spletne vsebine in internetne reference postale konsistenten in nepogrešljiv del sveta, v katerem živimo.

Na razstavi Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down predstavlja nova dela v obliki kolažev, ki so rezultat dolgotrajnega procesa zbiranja in urejanja fotografij in emotikonov, na katere je naletela med brskanjem po spletu. S kolažiranjem najdenih fotografij ustvarja naravne in urbane pokrajine, vanje pa vnaša emotikone ter s tem grafično zapisuje pestro dogajanje, gledalcu poznano in hkrati tuje v svojih proporcih ter nenavadnih kombinacijah. V podobah morskega, rastlinskega in mestnega okolja, pa v dvigu v gorski ter celo vesoljski svet je mogoče iskanje in posvečanje podrobnostim ter razbiranje narativ, skritih v širšo sliko.

Poleg kolažev so na razstavi tudi interaktivna spletna stran SND (Spoznavanje narave in družbe) in posnetki njenih podstrani, ki gledalca iz idilične situacije popelje skozi možne prizore prihodnosti našega planeta – od naravnih katastrof, kot so poplave, suše, potresi, požari in cunamiji do prenaseljenosti, ledene dobe, svetovnih pandemij, invazij nezemljanov, jedrskih eksplozij, padca meteorita in drugih možnih apokaliptičnih scenarijev. Na spletu najdene vsebine v obliki kratkih videov, izsekov iz popularnih filmov in serij, memejev, fotografij, gifov, popkulturnih referenc, emotikonov ter različnih zunanjih povezav do spletnih člankov ustvarjajo kompleksen in vizualno nasičeno naracijo, ki sledi tipičnim hollywoodskim filmskim premisam. V spletnem projektu se skriva mnogo dodatnih povezav in vsebin, ki omogočajo, da gledalec sam raziskuje dane tematike ter celo sam izbere lastno pripoved, ki vodi do različnih prihodnosti človeštva. SND je projekt v nastajanju in trenutno obsega več spletnih podstrani, ki so obenem tudi filmi, kot so You Are Here, Human Extinction, False Utopia, Overpopulation, Evacuate Earth, Nuclear Winter in Through The Wormhole. V času doomscrollanja, vznikanja raznih teorij zarot, anksioznosti glede podnebnih sprememb in napetih političnih situacij ter prevpraševanja načina in obstoja življenja v prihodnosti projekt SND skozi medij spletne strani prikazuje vsesplošen občutek nelagodja in nemoči, ki ga imamo ob vsakodnevnem spremljanju dogajanja po svetu.

KRATKA BIOGRAFIJA:

Sara Bezovšek (1993) je vizualna umetnica, ki deluje na področjih novih medijev, eksperimentalnega filma in grafičnega oblikovanja, iz katerega je tudi magistrirala na Akademiji za likovno umetnost in oblikovanje v Ljubljani. Sodelovala je na različnih skupinskih in samostojnih razstavah, med drugim v Ljubljani v projektnem prostoru Aksioma, galeriji Kamera v Kinu Šiška, Osmo/zi, galeriji sloART, DobriVagi, P74 in SCCA-Ljubljana, v spletni galeriji Feral File ter na festivalih Kiblix in MFRU v Mariboru ter IZIS v Kopru. Njen projekt SND je bil predstavljen na spletnem bienalu The Wrong Biennale ter na spletni platformi Do Not Research. Leta 2018 je prejela študentsko Prešernovo nagrado, leta 2022 pa je bila nominirana za nagrado skupine OHO, ki je del programa Young Artist Award. Leta 2021 je za svoj kratki film prejela glavno nagrado na festivalu FeKK, leta 2022 pa nagrado Vesna za najboljši slovenski eksperimentalni film. V letu 2023 pripravlja projekt za raziskovalno platformo [permanent beta] švicarske galerije fotomuseum winterthur.

︎︎︎INSTALLATION VIEWS