Slovenia

Group inspiration: a description of the Map of Ljubljana

Our group consists of four people, who all practice art: Mladen Jernejec, Matic Kos, Aljaž Babič and Eli Miklavčič. Some of us are still art student, others art teacher, but we are all living in Ljubljana, the city, which are we going to represent in the project Home.

We are all inspired by Ljubljana, by its history and presence, by its people and its art and architecture.

Ljubljana is not only the capital of Slovenia, but is also a city with large historical pedigree. We decided to put history as a basic line of our Map. We shall organize the composition of the Map in a form of spiral, starting in presence and going on into past, each historical monument or event after another, deeper and deeper into our history and our roots.

In first layer we will introduce the presence of our city. Not just its cosmopolitan vibe – which somehow spreads all over the map, making it and our history rooted in our contemporary conception – and not just its promise of opportunity to people from peripheries, but also its economical and political crisis, for which young people, who are trying to live a decent life, are mostly vulnerable.

Spiral will continue with Ljubljana as the capital of independent Slovenia; then with the Partisan resistance in the Second world war, when Ljubljana was trapped in barbed wire; it will continue with Plečnik’s architectural masterpiece, the Triple bridge; next with Napoleon; then with the Habsburg’s monarchy; then with the medieval Castle of Ljubljana; then with the Roman Emona and the famed statue the Emonian citizen; and it will all end with the ground zero, the oldest wheel in human history, on which lake dwellers travelled 5150 years ago.

Ljubljana is a beautiful city. It is the city of people and their lives, history and dreams. Hopefully our Map shall present our Slovenian jewel in all its presence: with all its lights and all its shadows.