Exhibition opening. Photo: Tanja Kanazir / Drugo more (Flickr gallery)
The first exhibition of this year within our Gallery DM program will open on Thursday, January 18, at 7 p.m. at the Filodrammatica Gallery (Korzo 28/1, Rijeka). You can visit the exhibition until February 8, 2024.
Gallery opening hours:
Monday – Friday 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. | 5 – 8 p.m.
Saturday 5 – 8 p.m.
The exhibition Games We Follow, Games We Create brings together a selection of artistic works created from 2011 to the present, in which the author Petra Mrša explores the human inclination towards play and imagination, relying on the potential of games to provide a new experience of reality.
By generating new experiences for participants, herself, or the audience, through asking questions, performativity, taking on roles, or occupying space, Petra Mrša encourages imagining a world in which we want to live and bringing that world to life through play. She also challenges dominant narratives shaping our everyday lives, questioning their intentions, causes, and patterns. By challenging prevailing knowledge, the author operates on the assumption that new experiences allow for a new relationship with the familiar.
Petra Mrša, Games and stitches – part 1 – LARP . Illustrated by: Mia Ventin
The seven superhero costumes from Games and stitches – part 1 – LARP (2021) were conceived by the residents of the Zagreb – Dugave Community Service Center, questioning the costumes and characteristics of female superheroes and creating their own interpretations in collaboration with fashion designer Mia Ventin. The dual-channel video Are you sure you want to leave the game? (2019) emerges from a workshop inviting a group of boys to shift their activities from video games to the physical space, eliciting authentic reactions within a staged structure, with the intention of rearranging the experience from the two worlds. With the work The sensing shoes (2020), Petra Mrša reshapes her own experience of public space by walking through the city in shoes with clay pads that captured the contact between the body and the city. Through self-imposed rules of an uncomfortable game, public space is examined as a place of belonging or alienation.
Petra Mrša, The sensing shoes, video excerpt. Courtesy of the artist
Petra Mrša, Are you sure you want to leave the game?, video excerpt. Courtesy of the artist
Two documentary films provide a depiction of experiences and interpersonal relationships arising from various types of games or adventures that protagonists devise or follow. The desire (2018) follows an intimate expedition to the island of Jabuka by pedal boat, an adventure that transcends the boundaries of the body, while in Health 90 (2022), a group of gamers exchange their experiences of following an adrenaline-fueled digital narrative. The fact-based work titled Zagreb, 16. 02. 2019. documents the action of a group of girls stemming from a series of games, based on which the girls decided to create banners and display them in Ban Jelačić Square in Zagreb.
A photograph of a boy from the series New School (2011) points to the biological need for play and imagination. Shivering throats, breaking the walls (2021) allows the visitor/participant engagement and immersion in a new experience, inviting the activation of their own body through sounds, exploring the possibility of using technology in self-conceived, vulnerable, and intimate activities.
author of the text: Elena Apostolovski
1. Games and stitches – part 1 – LARP , 7 costumes, 2021
2. Are you sure you want to leave the game?, two-channel video, 6′, color and sound, 2019
3. The sensing shoes, 1 pair of shoes par cipela na postamentu, video 1′, 2020
4. Health 90, documenary, 20′, 2022
5. The desire, documentary, 40′, 2018
6. Zagreb, 16. 02. 2019., photo, 20 x 30 cm, 2019
7. New school, photo 20 x 30 cm, 2011
8. Shivering throats, breaking the walls, tickets with QR code and instructions, 2021
☛Filodrammatica Gallery, Korzo 28/1, Rijeka
EXHIBITION OPENING:
Thursday, 18 January, at 7 p.m.
GALLERY OPENING HOURS:
Monday – Friday 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. | 5 – 8 p.m.
Saturday 5 – 8 p.m.
(closed on Sundays and public holidays; contact us to arrange another time of your visit)
PETRA MRŠA
