NMG@PRAKTIKA_LUCIJA OSTROGOVIĆ: EXCERCISING SPACE

23 – 31 / 01 / 2025

LUCIJA OSTROGOVIĆ: EXCERCISING SPACE

OPENING: Thursday, January 23rd at 20:00

The exhibition is open to visitors from Monday to Thursday during the gallery’s working hours from 17:00 to 20:00

Club Kocka Gallery, Youth Center Split, Ulica Slobode 28, http://www.dom-mladih.org

Lucija Ostrogović approaches space as a layered phenomenon, functioning simultaneously as a physical location, a symbolic landscape, and a social construct. The basic physical and structural elements of everyday spaces serve as starting points for exploration. Through the intervention of conservation probes, hidden layers of floors or walls are revealed, not merely as technical or material fragments of the everyday but as conceptual expansions of space. By peeling back layers of paint from walls, the existing space extends conceptually, opening possibilities for contemplating the relationship between the body and architecture. Viewing space as an active participant, the artist examines how it can be mapped, preserved, and conveyed—not only as a physical location but also as a narrative encompassing past, present, and potential futures. Therefore, her residency and work in the gallery space are significant, as she introduces no material or virtual evidence of artistic work but instead engages in the physical and conceptual transformation of spatial fragments through probing.

The exhibition evolves from the artist’s ongoing artistic practice, building on ideas and processes initiated in earlier works where she explored spatial perception through the phenomenon of gentrification and its effects on landscapes, society, and ways of life. This research now gains a new dimension through its connection with the Youth Center in Split. Considering its impending comprehensive renovation and uncertain future, the artist focuses on the multifunctional space and its specific context, defined in recent years by the function of the Gallery of the Club Kocka. While her methodology remains consistent, it is now applied to a different space and set of challenges. Through interventions in the gallery space, the artist investigates the relationship between the body and space. The processes of mapping and layering, which uncover the strata of floors and walls, serve as metaphors for reading—or exercising—space, not only as a physical reality but also as a symbolic one. This opens a dialogue about what the space once was, what it represents today, and what it could become.

Lucija Ostrogović examines space as a dynamic entity—a resource, a building block, and a medium through which social processes and personal reflections are articulated. In “Exercising Space,” the artist does not seek definitive answers but instead focuses on questions such as: How can space be read or mapped through its physical and symbolic layering? How can personal narratives connect with collective meanings of space? How can spaces transformed by social or economic pressures retain their authenticity or, at least, traces of their past? “Exercising Space” is not merely a meditation on a specific place but an invitation to deeply understand how spaces shape us, just as we shape them.

Lucija Ostrogović (Vrbnik, 1996) combines visual arts and anthropology in her work, exploring their potential overlaps and points of intersection. Her methodological and research process primarily adopts an ethnographic approach to everyday life. She holds degrees in Ethnology and Anthropology as well as German Language and Literature from the University of Zadar, and in New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has led several workshops on ethnographic drawing (Design Beginner’s Workshop, Croatian Designers Association; Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, Zadar; ETNOFILm Festival, Rovinj) and has exhibited her works in a solo exhibition “Landscape – Reading Her” (Gallery Događanja, Zagreb), the group exhibition “all GAME no PLAY” (Gallery SKC, Rijeka), and the visual activation project “Wow, what a gaze you have here!” (Vrbnik). She collaborated with the Art Pavilion in Zagreb on the project “12.5 Sequences for 125 Years of the Art Pavilion” (Sequence 11: Footnotes – a project for social media).

CURATOR / Jelena Šimundić Bendić

NMG CURATORIAL TEAM / Natasha Kadin, Vedran Perkov, Jelena Šimundić Bendić

TRANSLATION / Jelena Šimundić Bendić

DOCUMENTATION / Matea Parat

SETUP / Lucija Ostrogović, Jelena Šimundić Bendić

DONORS / Ministarstvo kulture i medija RH, Grad Split

MAVENA SUPPORTED BY / Zaklada Kultura nova

SPECIAL MENTION / KUM, MKC, PDM

DESIGN / Nikola Križanac

PRINT / Kopiring