cartography of absence / 2025
moving image, photography & publicationExhibited at:
Škuc, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2026
curated by: ETC. magazine & Vasil Vladimirov
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2025
curator: Danny Radichkov
The work unfolds as a collection of fragments: among them are some of the first images taken by the artist at the sites of the former forced-labour camps at Belene and Lovech – failed images in which the sites are obstructed rather than revealed. They sit alongside fragments of family histories and inherited memories, as well as blurry moving images from the first community-led Memorial Day held at the site of the former forced labour camp Lovech in 1990.
In another video work, a series of objects for a potential memorial museum – stones, branches and other natural materials – move through hands wearing white conservation gloves. The gesture borrows the language of archival preservation, while the objects themselves challenge what may be recognised as historical evidence. In the absence of preserved artefacts capable of representing this past, the plants and natural elements now occupying the former sites of violence become the artefacts of the museum.
The several photobooks function as visual diaries of the research and creative process. They bring together photographs of spaces, personal notes, hand-drawn maps of the camps and screenshots from self-led investigations, tracing both the traces of this history and the persistent gaps within it.
Across these different forms, the work explores how traumatic pasts are carried forward, represented and remembered across generations. It asks how art might become a form of preservation, reflection and resistance against forgetting, while creating spaces for dialogue around histories excluded from official archives and dominant historical narratives.
photography at Skuc: Matic Pandel