Exhibitions
Fotografija v javnem prostoru / Photography in public space 29. 5.–18. 6. 2014 – Galerija Kult 3000, Metelkova, Ljubljana
Zipped Worlds
Fotografija v javnem prostoru / Photography in public space
29. 5.–18. 6. 2014 – Galerija Kult 3000, Metelkova, Ljubljana
Photography in Public Domain
Breda Beban, Emma Ciceri, Fabrizio Giraldi, G.R.A.M., KOLEKTIVA, Borut Krajnc, Paula Muhr, Adrian Paci
Opening: 30 May at 8 pm
30 May – 18 June 2014
Kult 3000 Gallery, Ljubljana
WHERE: Metelkova ulica 2/b, Ljubljana
Zipped Worlds is a collaborative project by partner organisations Photon – Centre for Contemporary Photography and Trieste Contemporanea, in which a group of curators (Giuliana Carbi, Susanne Gamauf, Brigitte Konyen and Dejan Sluga) explore new concepts of public and private, as communicated through the (present) use of photographic images. The exhibition at Kult 3000 Gallery brings together a selection of works from the larger project involving 15 artists from different European countries.
Photography is entering public space with its physical presence, through digital media and furthermore through the notion that everything around us is constantly being recorded. Photography is de facto the most ubiquitously present visual medium in today’s urban environment. Within this wide spectrum, photography appears in public space (urban exteriors and interiors) in the traditional form of a “picture” as well as through the omnipresence of a network of surveillance cameras that record images non-stop. We are the most photographed and recorded world population ever.
At a time when most of us have mobile phone devices and digital cameras, we paradoxically insist on our right to privacy whilst simultaneously “snap-shooting” everything we see. On the one hand, there is our desire to capture fragments of everyday life in images, and on the other hand, there is ever-increasing inclination to censor and exert control over the same images. These trends are, in essence, contradictory and paradoxical. Hence, photography in the public sphere is becoming an extremely contentious area in which collective fears of terrorism, paedophilia, intrusions on privacy and control over images converge. This also raises legal issues, in particular as regards to the restriction of the use of photography in the public space.
Whist it is true that the individual’s privacy in the public space is not legally regulated, it is equally true that we have lost “photographic innocence”: whenever we pick up a camera, potentially there’s a person who might be intimidated by the gesture, which is a demonstration of paranoia of a period dominated by surveillance technology. Thus, taking pictures in public space also means assuming social responsibility, in particular in light of the contradictory urge to record everything, on one side, and protect privacy on the other.
Dejan Sluga
