SUPERPOSITION

The installation in two parts shows motifs of rural mythology addressing the tragedy of the summer '23 floods in Slovenia. In addition to damage to agricultural land, buildings, infrastructure and forests, the floods also caused a large loss of wildlife animals. Due to the destroyed living environment, they were stuck in the riverbeds and on the tops of broken trees, as the completely soggy terrain made it impossible to escape.

The hallucinatory landscape of rural melancholy has been summarized through the memory of the loss of many homes of people and animals, while the project's title derives from quantum mechanics, meaning that two different entities can occupy exactly the same states. Animals and humans therefore become members of the same political state.

In post-anthropocentrism, human and non-human animals are no longer embedded in a dualistic framework, but are all regulated together within the global infrastructure of the market economy and the universal techno-capitalist commodification of life (Braidotti, 2006). And while all aspects of life trigger radical climate change that wipes out species and cultures in an instant, our memories parallelly drown within the pool of advanced capitalism.

Maja Smrekar, “SUPERPOSITION”, 2023, Commission of City Gallery Ljubljana for the Co_Existence exhibition curated by Barbara Sterle Vurnik

Collaborators:

Spatial planning and consulting: Aljaž Rudolf; taxidermy: Rok Hafner

Execution: Maja Smrekar, Zlata Ziborova, technical crew MGML

3-channel video editing: Zlata Ziborova

 Photo: Blaž Gutman, Maja Smrekar