A post with hundreds of comments has been making a reappearance on my Facebook feed over the past month. It lamented the unseemliness, squalor, and foul stench of Zagreb City Centre, particularly outside of the rather limited tourist area, which hardly extends beyond 1000 metres in any direction from the clock at the main square, with the odd street here and there as an exception. Posts like these, coupled with the fervent debate in the comments, often spark a clash between a disconcerting blend of cultural snobbery, class privilege, and sentimentality, and the sincere concerns of cultural workers, urbanists, and citizens who seek to understand the city’s current and future dynamics beyond merely generating private profit at the expense of communal values and practices. Visiting Ljubljana at least once a year, I'm always a bit taken aback by just how immaculately polished its city centre is, compared to Zagreb. When I mention this to someone who has been living in Ljubljana her entire life, she rolls her eyes: “This is exactly why I rarely ever bother going to the city centre anymore.” As is repeatedly proven across Europe and beyond, attractiveness for tourists and meaningfulness, affordability, and livability for locals are not one and the same.
One of the artistic interventions under the joint title Mending the Invisible by Ivana Müller and Bojana Kunst, developed together with Ana Čigon, Ajda Bračič, Urban Belina and Klara Drnovšek Solina (co-produced by Bunker and Maska) tackles this issue in a very blunt manner. We gather on one of the most popular streets, Stari trg, lined with restaurants and delightfully quirky shops selling cheeky tote bags adorned with penises and breasts, unique ceramics, and adorable table lamps shaped like rats. After reading their statement, the artists use a stretched white cloth between them to block the tourists from passing for seven minutes. The narrative of Romeo and Juliet, already as commodified as it gets by two restaurants (one named after Juliet, the other… ) separated by a steady stream of daily tourists, was used as a symbolic and emotional point to highlight the "flawed neoliberal city policies" that keep locals away from their own city turning it into one giant permanently booked Airbnb, and casting a sinister shadow over its no longer quite as charming shops.
[And yet, as landscape architect and urban planner Maja Simoneti gently remarked a few days later during Debatna kafana (a discursive programme of the Mladi Levi Festival in collaboration with the MG+MSUM summer school), gentrification does not strike like a meteor, with sudden and catastrophic impact. Rather, it insidiously creeps up on us, often welcomed with open arms, as it entices us with the promise of pleasure and comfort. We find ourselves happily enjoying a glass of mulled wine outside in winter, warmed by a patio heater, grateful that the shops are also opened on Saturday afternoon, scarcely noticing the gradual transformation of our surroundings. Additionally, as someone I spoke with remarked, gentrification tends to be primarily a concern for those who are already significantly culturally privileged.]
What inevitably happens, of course, is that the intervention doesn’t just block tourists from passing (who seem to enjoy trying to sneak through—they are on holiday, after all), but also irritates a local postwoman (“Are you a local?” asks one of the artists. “I’m a postie!” she proudly responds, wearing a yellow T-shirt) and a restaurant owner, whose livelihood (but also excess profit) depends on those very same tourists. The artists are, of course, completely aware of these contradictions. The intervention invokes Oliver Marchart’s idea that public art needs to provoke conflict in public spaces, revealing the entrenched contradictions we often take for granted, in order to be truly understood as public. Although it was made clear in the opening artists statement that this isn’t a personal critique of tourists, but rather a critique of gentrification processes that seem to have gone too far, turning from “space as a support system into space as a commodity” (Dubravka Sekulić, another speaker at Debatna kafana), interventions like these inevitably take on a personal and individual character. They involve small-scale interactions, the chance to make someone laugh, the challenge of navigating potential conflicts, and the need to manage unpredictability and surprises.
It would be interesting to see if the second intervention within the Mending the Invisible project will manage to stir up some friction or result in other future reverberations. The artists used another well-known spot in Ljubljana, the area in front of the Slovensko-Srbski Antikvariat Cunjak in Trubarjeva street (even quirkier shops and delicious international street food), to place a freestanding panel featuring images of female and queer writers (Branka Jurca, Ana Gale, Lili Novy, Roszika Parker, Aleksandra Kolontaj, Angela Piskernik, Hildegard von Bingen…) and even non-human animals and plants (female spider described as a weaver and mythological influencer; moss described as queer), in an effort to be inclusive of various life forms. This action was prompted by the fact that this bookshop, which houses books in Serbian and Croatian, has its frontage adorned with images of 16 famous men of letters, yet not a single woman is represented. Interestingly, about ten years ago, there was a woman featured—Desanka Maksimović (Google image search remembers) —but she has since disappeared from the lineup, perhaps to make room for another “famous man of letters”, Novak Djoković (judging by his Wikipedia entry, Djoković is indeed "a man of letters," with his life and significance warranting 40,111 words—nearly double the length of the World War II entry, which contains a mere 26,018 words.) When I passed by the same spot a few days later, I noticed that someone had added two new names, handwritten: Karla Bulovec and Elda Piščanec, which feels like an embrace of the project.
At the public toilets in Kongresni trg, the intervention involved the audience jotting down things, ideas, objects, or concepts they wanted to get rid of—on a piece of toilet paper. We then went downstairs, where the artists flushed away our scribblings while we were given a brief history of where our flushed papers, along with other waste, would travel through Ljubljana’s sewage system in a sort of a recycling “loop”. In a humorous twist, we were told that the "stubborn residue" from the sewage, which resists decomposition, eventually helps to heat the citizens of Vienna and Graz. This amusing detail evoked a satirical nod to Austro-Hungarian colonialism: the poo of Ljubljana's residents now serves to warm Austrian bodies.
And the "loop" from which this series of interventions began is the one that will remain in its designated spot in Tabor Park, opposite a retirement home, for people to enjoy long after the end of the festival. This is a zoetrope, a device that creates an illusion of motion. Over time, it fell into partial neglect and was repurposed as a makeshift bulletin board. Now restored, thanks to this project, it displays drawings of residents of the retirement home (made by Ana Čigon), who have been participating in Bunker's workshops, while they are humorously interacting. As we peer through the slits, the drawings merge into several short films. (This) zoetrope was specifically chosen because the residents expressed a particular longing for movement, having missed the ability to move freely through the city—this desire was thus transformed into a physical metaphor. Bunker has a long history of collaboration with this retirement home, as part of various year-round projects, with the Škart group having held workshops there for several years. This series of workshops, conceived by Müller and Kunst, focused on the memories of Ljubljana's older residents about their city, exploring ideas of utopian places, places they wished to see destroyed, places that held erotic memories for them… The launch of the installation was accompanied, as in other places, with a charming out of tune live singing dedicated to the event and a reading that gives some context to the situation.
What unites all these interventions—along with three others (an improvised library in a parking lot, an intervention into a privatised space that blocks the possibility of enjoying reportedly the most beautiful view of the city, and an intervention among blocks of flats addressing housing policy in Ljubljana)—is a continuous effort to "repair" or "mend" the city. The initiative involved several one week visits that stretched over a year and a half and included meetings and discussions with various individuals and organisations, such as Krater kolektiv (https://krater.si/en), Plac - Participativna Ljubljanska Avtonomna Cona (https://www.facebook.com/avtonomniPLAC/?locale=sl_SI), No Border craft (https://www.facebook.com/no.border.craft.community/) and others. The context of production is shared during public discussions—Debatna kafana—held under the chestnut trees in Tabor Park, as well as during a performance at the Sports Association Tabor. The performance serves as a sort of recap of the various interventions and the project as a whole. I did, however, miss a nod to similar “repair” projects that have been ongoing for decades in Ljubljana and elsewhere. I understand, though, that including this could have led to a potentially endless digression. On the other hand, the meticulous attention to detail in the performance—such as cooling us down with a large sheet and other considerate gestures—was particularly endearing.
The Mending the Invisible can be seen as both a counterpart and a mirror image to the Shared Landscapes, a large scale project which launched this year’s edition of Mladi Levi Festival, curated by Stefan Kaegi and Caroline Barneaud. While Mending the Invisible seeks to leave its mark on the city (even if it is small-scale and even if it does mainly function as a series of poetic gestures), drawing attention to certain structural issues —Shared Landscapes takes a more sensory and ephemeral approach in the forest, yet also addresses wider (and international) issues of our relationship with spaces we inhabit, of human animals as a part of nature and in nature. By juxtaposing these two settings through these two projects, I appear to be invoking the classic modernist dichotomy between city and forest. However, as Dubravka Sekulić observed during the Debatna kafana discussion, this distinction is far less clear-cut than we might initially think. For instance, by certain criteria, London could be classified as a forest (considering the presence of foxes and various other animals and insects, along with the United Nations definition that a forest is any area with at least 20 percent tree coverage). What undeniably blurs the line between these two environments, however, is the shared need to defend common spaces and even our awareness of their importance. In countries with a socialist legacy, the idea of the commons has been taken for granted but is increasingly under threat from various privatisation strategies. In fact, the very forest where Shared Landscapes is taking place, Koseški boršt, is owned by numerous private individuals. While they cannot do as they please with the land, as it is not theirs in an absolute sense, their consent was still required for the events to proceed. This, as one might imagine, creates a delicate situation in terms of production and organisation, making the entire process quite precarious.
In Shared Landscapes, we, the audience and performers, are gently introduced to the forest, welcomed into the meadow, and guided over small hills, all under the condition that we disturb the natural environment as little as possible. This poses a challenge, especially considering there were more than a hundred of us on the final day, with around 460 people having experienced the piece in total. Despite being set in the forest, this seven-hour event, comprising seven performances, remains paradoxically and richly introspective, consciously avoiding any lasting impact on its surroundings in a deliberate act of preservation.
Consider, for instance, the piece by Begüm Erciyas and Daniel Kötter. Your VR headset elevates you high above the very forest where you stand, allowing you to watch as the ground drifts away beneath you. This creates a sensation of kinaesthetic disorientation and discomfort, while simultaneously offering the exhilarating illusion of flight. However, the absence of trackers on your hands and feet introduces a peculiar tension between visually induced sensation of movement and the awareness that the movement is merely an image (you can’t see your (anyone’s) hands when you raise them to your eyes). A feedback session on the various ways in which we experience VR technology in this context would have been fascinating. My partner, who doesn’t share my fear of heights, actually experienced more discomfort than I did. I’m curious about how much this difference relates to our varying awareness of the strangeness of our embodied experience or to the predominance of the visual mode of perception. Importantly, the project also carries a significant political dimension. Its second part (or first, depending on where you start) addresses the activities of the Russian mining company GeoProMining and its gold extraction from the Sotk Goldmine, which has left a visible scar on the landscape, evident in satellite images—a veritable "wound in the terrain." However, the situation is considerably more complex, intertwining with the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1993) and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War between ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis. This is where the piece finds its true power, as its two parts converge forcefully: the peril and destruction of the landscape are experienced vertically—the gold buried below and the drones hovering above—contrasting with the horizontal panorama, which reflects “the traditional view of landscape in Western hegemonic visual culture”. Our elevated VR perspective, initially a vulnerable exploration of kinaesthesia, is now revealed as the vantage point from which the danger comes.
The piece by Stefan Kaegi, adapted for the Slovenian context by director Tjaša Črnigoj, also begins with an introspective approach. We are invited to lie down, listen to an audio recording, and gaze upwards at the tree canopies. This perspective fosters a sense of solitude, as you’re visually unaware of others lying nearby. The conversation we overhear brings together an unusual group of discussants: a child, a meteorologist, a singer, a psychoanalyst, and a forester. Each speaker’s observations are deeply shaped by their life experiences and professions. For instance, the forester, Marija, is discontented with the unpruned spruce, while the meteorologist, Andrej, reflects on humanity's limited ability to influence the weather, discussing the formation and dispersal of clouds. He is also weary of further attempts to manipulate the weather, reminding us that clouds know no borders, and such actions could have unintended consequences for neighboring countries. Meanwhile, Marija speaks highly of the Slovenian forestry school, highlighting its role in reforesting Brač and providing crucial advice to Japan. Her remarks indicate that sustainable forest management is not only a matter of practice but, more importantly, a matter of national policy that should be legally enshrined. The conversation strikes a balance between focus and openness, and I particularly appreciate how it subtly and precisely, relying on concrete examples that reveal the interconnections between humans and their environment without preaching or overt advocacy. The most striking moment in the conversation comes when the topic of death is mentioned. An adult, panicked, quickly tries to reassure the child Brina that she needn't think about such things yet, seemingly unaware that there are many children whose life experiences have already exposed them to the reality of death. Brina, however, takes control of the situation with remarkable composure, calmly describing how she envisions her own burial allowing the conversation to flow seamlessly from there.
Sofia Diaz and Vítor Roriz are the only artists to initiate a participatory collaboration in exploration of the forest in their piece. While it might verge on excessive "tree hugging" for some, it complements the other works by encouraging us to focus on both the immediate environment and the people around us—an approach that resonates when spending seven hours or more in their company. This is reminiscent of Ligna’s (https://www.ligna.org/) choreographic scores that one listens to and performs, which, to my knowledge, have never been featured at Bunker’s festivals but would be a fitting addition.
Chiara Bersani and Marco D’Agostin’s piece was perhaps the most poignant for me, not at the time of experiencing it, but in retrospect. In its immediacy, the piece also suggests a certain turning inward, yet with a heightened awareness of the surroundings and our place within them. It raises the question of accessibility, but also elevates it to a new level. For Urša Urbančič, a performer in this piece and a wheelchair user, other works within the Shared Landscapes project were inaccessible. The stark reality is that the only way to make them accessible would be to bulldoze the forest paths and cover them in concrete—a form of environmental destruction that would be nothing short of vandalism. Thus, the issue of accessibility (in “natural” settings) needs to be approached from a different perspective. How this can be achieved, I have no idea, but it is a question I find deeply intriguing.
While I found the anthropomorphisation of nature in El Conde de Torrefiel’s piece problematic —portraying nature as an angry, tedious uncle, speaking in a menacing tone and patronisingly disapproving of how people treat it, a portrayal that felt like a rather restrictive mummification of nature—the absolute highlight of the event for me was the piece directed by Émilie Rousset.
Addressing broader issues such as EU farming policies and bioacoustics, the piece features interviews with ethologist and bioacoustician Fanny Ribak and Faustine Bas-Defossez, Director for Nature, Health, and Environment at the European Environmental Bureau, embodied by Barbara Kukovec and Nataša Živković. It also includes the live participation of local farmer Žiga Štrukelj, who drives his green tractor up and down the meadow while singing “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story and discussing his 600-year-old farm, which is surrounded by apartment buildings. The staging is notably humorous—not just in its content, which is mostly quite serious, addressing issues like ineffective ecological regulation legislation in Slovenia and noise pollution affecting animals. As we sit on a sloping meadow, we gaze down at tiny figures in the distance who gradually approach, while we listen to their conversation through headphones. There is something profoundly absurd and self-mocking about this setup, which mimics a traditional theatre perspective of viewing from a distance. And indeed, at the beginning, the stage is quite distant—almost a kilometre away.
As for Unless by Ari Benjamin Meyers, although I was considering leaving early due to fatigue, overheating, and being caramelised in sweat, I am immensely glad I stayed until the end. It turned out to be the most captivating of his four musical pieces, each dedicated to a different element: the trees, the ground, the birds, and the air. I should have anticipated that this piece would be worth staying for, as the earlier works—featuring musicians concealed in the woods—exemplify the gentle interaction between the project and nature, creating the curious impression that the forest itself is playing the trumpet, flute, and trombone. In Meyers’ work, the music becomes profoundly tangible, taking on almost material shapes and forms.
Even without prior experience in production, one can easily imagine the immense challenge of organising such an event for four consecutive days. Forest setting, even in this relatively tame variation close to urban areas, is relentless and unforgiving: VR equipment overheats, ticks and mosquitoes are eager for human blood, weather conditions remain indifferent to the needs of artists and audiences alike, and the terrain is inaccessible to anyone who isn’t fully able-bodied—forest, in this context, becomes a festival of eugenics. What perhaps eased the burden slightly, though likely also caused some stress due to possible comparisons, is that versions of this project had already been presented in various partner environments. This project is part of a large European consortium that, apart from Bunker and Mladi Levi Festival (Slovenia) also includes Culturgest (Portugal), Festival d’Avignon (France), Tangente St. Pölten – Festival für Gegenwartskultur (Austria), Temporada Alta (Spain), Zona K, Piccolo Teatro di Milano Teatro d’Europa (Italy), and Berliner Festspiele (Germany).
P.S. I greatly appreciate Mladi Levi’s policy of permitting photographs during performances. This is a rarity, as many producers, companies, and artists often "protect" their work from unofficial photographs, which always leaves me puzzled. What exactly are they protecting the work from? People seeing it? Spoilers? Unpolished photos and awkward angles? Its uncontrollable reception?
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