CITY OF STEEL – Memories of Childhood

 

“Matija Debeljuh combines an interest in experimental film, documentarism and video installations to present physical and mental landscape, as a meditation about traces of progress and decay. Video highlights the relationship of the space and the document, it approaches the character of poetic documentary and deals with labour issues, although it does not belong to the genre, that is, to a documentary film.
Today we can speak of “documentary turn” in contemporary art practices as a the way in which artists want to establish a specific relationship with the reality, redefining the visual language, aesthetics, experiment, through representations of social reality and personal, individual stories. A large number of visual artists reaches for the methods and tools of documentary, it becomes a reference point in contemporary art, and the documentarism thus becomes a mean of mediating the relationship with the reality, as a a way of interpreting reality and the world around us. In this sense, the intention of these frames is not only describing the industrial landscape, but it points to the representation of industrial production, explores and reflects different positions and ways in which the meaning and experience of space is structured.
This video journey through space and time represents the town of Zenica as a actual, physical space and indicates the processes of industrial, ideological and economic transformation. ”

 

Branka Benčić

 

About the Author:

Matija Debeljuh was born on 14th of April 1980 in Pula. He graduated from the Art Academy in Split, Design of Visual Communication – Video Design in class of prof. Vlado Zrnić. So far, he has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Pula, Rovinj, Rijeka, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje, Turin, Trieste, Athens, Vilnius, New York, Brussels and others. In 2003 the artist represented Croatia at the Biennale of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean. He participated at several national and international workshops like the Sarajevo Talent Campus, Sarajevo Film City project and the Berlinale Talent Campus. Experimental films and video works by Matija Debeljuh have been shown at international festivals where they have won significant awards.

 

http://dispet.org/2014/05/grad-od-celika-u-galeriji-praktika/ http://www.seecult.org/vest/grad-od-celika http://www.kulturpunkt.hr/content/grad-od-celika