NMG@PRAKTIKA / 29 October – 5 November 2026
Club Kocka Gallery, Youth Centre Split
Opening: Thursday, 29 October 2026, at 20:00
Exhibition dates: 29 October – 5 November 2026
Regular opening hours after the opening: Monday to Thursday, 17:00–20:00
Venue: Club Kocka Gallery, Youth Centre Split
Address: Ulica Slobode 28, Split, Croatia
The exhibition Aftermath by Elia Friganović opens on Thursday, 29 October 2026, at 20:00 at Club Kocka Gallery, as part of the NMG@PRAKTIKA programme. Curated by Karla Čudina, the exhibition explores landscapes on Adriatic coast and islands affected by wildfires, droughts, and storms.
Curatorial text
Karla Čudina
To observe nature is to follow changes that often extend beyond human notions of time and measure. It requires lingering before what is not yet complete, before decaying materials, shifting surfaces, and forms of life emerging where we least expect them. Such observation does not necessarily seek a scene to depict, but a relationship to establish.
With the exhibition Aftermath, artist Elia Friganović presents scenes and fragments of landscapes along the Dalmatian coast and islands affected by natural disasters such as wildfires, droughts, and storms. Walking through nature, the artist gathers the remains of trees, dried plant matter, and pieces of soil and stone that serve as material records of altered ecological conditions. She documents these scenes through photography, video, and 3D scanning, while processing the collected objects using cyanotype, a technique that gives the images a distinct deep blue tone and sharp silhouettes.
At the heart of the exhibition is a series of 36 photographs and prints that present nature as a dynamic and active field of ”disturbance”; in interdisciplinary discussions on ecology, the Anthropocene, and inter-species relationships, the term disturbance is used to describe a process that alters existing living conditions, disrupts established natural relationships, and opens up possibilities for their reshaping. This understanding aligns closely with the work of anthropologist Anna Tsing, whose research into disturbed landscapes and precarious conditions of survival tracks how new life forms and interspecies collaborations emerge in altered environments.
Here, natural disasters are not framed as isolated events of destruction, but as part of a complex process whose causes, consequences, and timescales cannot be reduced to a single moment of catastrophe. For example, the activity of bark beetles and the gradual weakening of trees point to processes of forest degradation that precede any visible destruction, which the disaster only subsequently brings to light. At the same time, connecting local landscapes with global anthropogenic impacts challenges the strict line between natural and human-caused processes. Catastrophe is thus seen within a broader context of climate, ecological, social, and economic relations that shape living conditions in a given place.
The artist invites the viewer to reenact the gesture of moving through nature, observing carefully, and recording the changes therein – where walking, pausing, documenting, and collecting become integral to the art-making process itself. Embracing the uncertainty of its transformations, the artist views nature as an interdependent relationship where responsibility means a willingness to face what remains, to recognize changes before they become obvious, and to spot the potential for alternative ways of surviving in a damaged landscape, without romanticizing the destruction.
It is precisely for this reason that Aftermath – what follows or what remains – refers not only to the ”regrowth” and ”healing” of the landscape, but also to the conditions that enable life to persist within it, as well as the limits of human ability to predict ecological processes or try to direct them through our own actions.
About the artist
Elia Friganović was born in Dubrovnik in 1996. She completed her undergraduate studies in the Art Education Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2019. In 2022, through the funded IMFA programme, she graduated in Contemporary Art from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.
She has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad, including Sve što se odbaci padne u jezik (Everything Discarded Falls into Language) at the Belgrade Youth Centre Gallery (2023) and Bio-glif (Bio-glyph) at Art Workshop Lazareti / Otok Gallery in Dubrovnik (2023). She participated in the Hillhaus Art Residency in Beijing (2025) and the Atelijeri Žitnjak residency in Zagreb (2026).
Her practice centres on experimentation with artistic materials, exploring relationships between nature, humans, and technology, and their semiotic interpretation. She lives and works between Dubrovnik and Zagreb.
Visit the exhibition
Opening: Thursday, 29 October 2026, at 20:00
Exhibition dates: 29 October – 5 November 2026
Regular opening hours after the opening: Monday to Thursday, 17:00–20:00
Venue: Club Kocka Gallery, Youth Centre Split
Address: Ulica Slobode 28, Split, Croatia
About NMG@PRAKTIKA
NMG@PRAKTIKA is a programme of solo exhibitions by young artists from Croatia and abroad, held at Club Kocka Gallery in Split’s Youth Centre. It forms part of NMG – New Media Gallery, an international curatorial platform run by MAVENA – 36 njezinih čuda.
Through new media and experimentation with different forms of artistic expression, the programme addresses contemporary social issues and supports emerging artistic practices.
Credits and support
Organiser: MAVENA – 36 njezinih čuda
Curator: Karla Čudina
Exhibition installation: Elia Friganović and Karla Čudina
NMG team: Karla Čudina, Natasha Kadin, Vedran Perkov and Jelena Rogošić
Translation: Ivan Berecka
Documentation: Jelena Rogošić
Design: Mladen Luketić
The programme is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Split. MAVENA’s work is supported by the Kultura Nova Foundation.
With thanks to KUM, MKC, and PDM.
