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Monday, January 11, 2010

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“City” is a project of collecting and archiving abandoned dog houses that became part of three different installations shown on three exhibitions:
- “City”, Solo Exhibition in Barrel Gallery, Zagreb
- “Space In and In Between” in Le Konschthaus Beim Engel, Luxembourg
- “10th Triennial of Croatian Sculpture”, Glyptotheque Sculpture Museum of Croatian Academy of Science and Arts, Zagreb

The project ended with a donation of dog houses to The Animal Protection Association “Spirit” – shelter to abandoned dogs.

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"City" - Project Description

CITY, SITE SPECIFIC INSTALLATION, BARREL GALLERY

Site-specific installation “City” consists of twenty old kennels with elements of light. Doghouses are scattered in the space to suggest a small town, some of them standing alone, others in row of two or three houses, while one of them is hanging in the air. Several houses are illuminated with electric bulbs.

I have collected old and abandoned kennels in Croatian villages and town suburbs where the kennels, that visually fit to my project, can be found. At the exhibition, along with the installation, I have presented an art-book about the process of collecting the objects.

In Croatia, particularly in rural parts, kennels often have peculiar appearances. For the lack or violation of building regulations, kennels are usually made of unexpected materials such as plastic, asbestos, rusted metal and various leftovers from building materials.

Furthermore, kennels are often situated at rather unusual places, for example on the roof of a house. Perhaps there was no space for it elsewhere, or the house has no backyard which is so often the case in residential parts of Zagreb such as "Tresnjevka", where it is usual to (financially) take advantage of every inch of the space, so as a result we can see areas where there is no foot board, or backyard or plot. While taking photographs for the art-book, I am treating the kennels as a portraits, for in my opinion, that is what they really are - the portrait of society that produces them.

Setting this installation in Mestrovic's Pavilion points to the contrast often seen in Croatia – at the time when the building was built it was an extraordinary exhibition space in Europe and yet, just a few yards further we can still find odd objects like this kennels. To point to such a disharmony, I literary moved the kennels to Mestrovic's Pavilion to create a settlement descried above.

The important element of installation "City" is a fear, a fear of dogs that are kept on a chain. As an indicator for contemplating the differences between societies, I use relation to dogs. Remembering my first visit to Paris, I was surprised by the peacefulness of dogs. They were everywhere...in boutiques, in beauty salons, in bistros and patisseries, they never barked, or shown any other signs of aggressiveness. I am opposing this experience to the view from my window in what is being considered a very nice and child'friendly part of Zagreb – it is midday, a young man is arriving at the children play area with his dog, in some European countries forbidden breed. As he shows up with the unleashed dog, which is attacking other dogs and frightening passengers, people run away to their homes at once. Except for the fear in this work, I have also tried to incorporate other associations such as violation of laws and poaching on somebody else's preserves, lack of regulations or noncompliance with regulations, but also “a dog's life”, a shortage of the space (both space for living and for free activities), obscure hovels, terror.

While we watch most unusual combinations of materials of which kennels were made and while we wonder how those objects can serve as homes, we can almost hear the sound of the chain which scrapes along the wire cable – a strange invention which absurdly serves to give a dog more living space and “freedom”.

Like in my other work, I am trying to “translate” these thoughts into 3 dimensions. This shantytown provokes uneasiness that we feel when walking through the ruins of a ghost town. We don’t know who were its inhabitants. What animates these objects is light. Kennels are illuminated from the inside, to literary but also metaphorically light up their interior. The interior of the kennels is almost always unknown, like a dark womb, we can only speculate what is inside. We can guess that the inside of the kennel, the ground and the walls are soaked with emotions. Illumination of the interior is like inverting a womb and in wider context, or perhaps like taking responsibility for one's actions?

In which aspects of life do we act unconsciously, taking things for granted?

Inviting visitors to view the issues form every angle, I hanged a single kennel in the space, so along with seeing objects from above from Gallery PM, they can also be viewed from below.

Anita Sulimanović

"City" - Anita Sulimanovic

Monday, January 11, 2010

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