Thursday, 18 April 2024

Event Details

Curator Roberta Bacic with (to her right) Vesna Teršelič, director of Documenta - Centre for Dealing with the Past, during a guided tour at the exhibition launch, 14th September 2019. (Photo: Tajana Ban Kirigin)

Curator Roberta Bacic with (to her right) Vesna Teršelič, director of Documenta - Centre for Dealing with the Past, during a guided tour at the exhibition launch, 14th September 2019. (Photo: Tajana Ban Kirigin)

 

Exhibition and associated activities:Tkanine otpora: glasovi žena / Textiles of Resistance: Women's Voices
Description: This exhibition has its origins in a workshop facilitated by Roberta Bacic in April 2019 in Rijeka. Here, Roberta presented the “Conflict Textiles” collection and introduced a workshop methodology she uses with different social and age groups. Participants Tena Banjeglav and Alice Straniero from Documenta found the method fascinating and, with her permission, adapted it for the Croatian context, facilitating three workshops with young people in three different Croatian cities. The participants really liked the structure and content of the workshops, which prompted them to start discussing topics connected to the war in the 1990s in a more open and involving way. After seeing the positive reaction of young participants, Tena and Alice presented their experience to professors, youth workers and the broader public, to enable them to integrate this methodology within their everyday work, in order to improve the method of dealing with the topic of the 1990s war. This entire process will culminate in the September 2019 exhibition “Tkanine otpora: glasovi žena / Textiles of Resistance: Women's Voices” and has contributed to the creation of the exhibition content and programme of supporting events.

A programme of associated activities will consist of an opening event, workshop for teachers, workshop for general public, guided tours and a closing event. These events will connect to both Conflict Textiles Exhibition and the Exhibition “Guardians of the Spoon” which takes place at the same time in Galerija Principij.

“Guardians of the Spoon” is a collaborative project between photographer Manca Juvan, journalist Saša Petejan and historian Urška Strle, which consists of a book, exhibition, website, radio and film documentaries. The exhibition addresses survivor memories on widespread wartime violence against civilians, crimes that included the shooting of hostages, the destroying and burning of villages, and instances of mass internment in Rab, Gonars, Visco, Monigo, Chiesanuova, Renicci, Colfiorito, Fraschette di Alatri, Cairo Montenotte and others, where more than 50,000 Slovenes, Croats, Montenegrins and other South Slavs along with Jews were interned. Additional information is available at http://www.guardiansofthespoon.com/

Web links:
Documenta (hrvatski / Croatian)
Article by Goran Božičević in H-Alter, 20 September 2019 (hrvatski / Croatian). See documents section below.

Exhibition launch takes place on Saturday, 14th September at 12 noon.

Commissioned by: Documenta - Centre for dealing with the past,
Date(s): 14th September 2019 - 30th September 2019
Venue: Galerija Principij, Rijeka, Croatia
Ulica pod Voltun 4, Rijeka, Croatia
Curator: Roberta Bacic, assisted by Breege Doherty
Facilitator: Vesna Teršelič, director of Documenta, and volunteers from Documenta
Outcome: The key anticipated outcomes for this exhibition are to:
- introduce Conflict Textiles collection to the Croatian public
- open dialogue on creative ways of dealing with the legacy of collective violence
- raise awareness about the role of women in resisting violence
- enable participants to make connections between the events depicted in arpilleras and their own local history, prompting them to reflect more in-depth on these events.

Memorabilia from this exhibition and the arpilleras Homenaje a los caídos / Homage to the fallen ones and Puntadas de Vida / Stitches of Life were subsequently exhibited in "The Last Witnesses" and "Fabrics of Resistance: Women's Voices" exhibitions in the Rab City Library, 5th Sept. – 2nd Oct. 2020 (see report section below). These exhibitions were part of an overall commemoration marking the 77th anniversary of the liberation of internees from the Italian Fascist concentration camp Kampor, where up to 15,000 Croats, Slovenes and Jews were interned between July 1942 and September 1943.




Documents: • Workshop: Galerija Principij, Rijeka, Apr '19 - view
• Workshop:Faculty of Humanities, Rijeka, Apr19 - view
• Building peace workshop: Zagreb, 22nd May '19 - view
• Building peace workshop: Rijeka, 23rd May '19 - view
• Building peace workshop: Karlovac, 24th May - view
• Documenta Newsletter #5, 2019 (English) - view
• Overall report for all workshops: July 2019 - view
• Textile/Memorabilia list: Croatia, July 2019 - view
• Workshop report: final event, July 2019 - view
• Exhibition launch invite (Eng) 14 Sept 2019 - view
• Exhibition launch invite (Croatian) 14 Sept - view
• Invite: The last witness (Eng) 14 Sept 2019 - view
• Invite: The last witness (Croatian) 14 Sept - view
• Exhibitions programme: Rijeka, Sept 2019 - view
• Article (Croatian): Goran Božičević "H-Alter" - view
• Report: Exhibition opening, Rijeka 14th Sept - view
• “The Last Witnesses”, Launch report, Rab 2020 - view
• Closing events report: Rab, Oct 2020-English - view
• Closing events report: Rab, Oct 2020-Croatian - view