Listening to the waterfalls of the sun

The exhibition is inspired by recent interest in spiritual worldviews and the revival of ancient knowledge in contemporary art. In times of crisis such as the current one, it becomes more understandable that artists turn towards those oft-hidden stories and non-scientific approaches which helped people get through difficulties in the past and which are now worth reconsidering. They ask: what can we learn from past belief systems and ways of thinking? How can we revisit folk traditions without repeating far-right nationalist rhetoric? How can we create more resilient communities and within these communities new rituals in order to shape a livable present and future?

The exhibition examines the ecological crisis of our present from this specific angle and takes us back to times when people had a different, more holistic relationship with nature.

References to former magical rituals, folk traditions and questions around healing and ethnomedicine resonate in the exhibited works by artists from the wider Eastern-European region. However, while revisiting the past, artists don’t get stuck there; they believe that if we revisit these ancient belief systems we might be able to find various survival strategies which could be useful today. They also often depart from their historical starting point; they change the stories and create their own altered versions. As a result, storytelling and speculative fiction could emerge as a useful strategy in order to imagine possible futures. Thus, instead of following a linear chronology, the exhibition highlights fragmented episodes from the past and visions of a livable future in the works, which range from moving images through mixed media installations to performative events.

*The title of the exhibition is an adaptation of a line from the poem Dogfish by Mary Oliver.

ERSTE Foundation is main partner of tranzit.
Supported using public funding by the Slovak Arts Council.
The project has been kindly supported by the Polish Institute in Bratislava.

Location: tranzit.sk, Beskydská 12, Bratislava
Date: 14. 04. – 14. 07. 2023
Opening: 14 April 2023, 18.00
Open: Tuesday – Friday: 14:30 – 18:30
Admission: free

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