NMG@PRAKTIKA_SANJA MERĆEP: IN FACT AND IN FICTION

OPENING: Thursday, February 20th 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, Slobode ul. 28, Split

Landscapes are not merely visual reflections of space but always carry a layered network of meanings derived from personal experiences, collective memories, and cultural constructs. The perception of landscape is the result of a dynamic process in which images, narratives, and social expectations intertwine, shaping how we experience and interpret it. This relationship between the real and the constructed is crucial for understanding how the landscape becomes a bearer of meaning.

One of the starting points of Sanja Merćep’s research is the historical phenomenon of the spectacularization of landscapes, which is particularly evident in the theatrical reconstruction of the ascent of Mont Blanc, performed in 1852 by British adventurer Albert Smith. His staging of the mountain experience demonstrates how a landscape can become more than just a scene—it can transform into a narrative that shapes audience perception and creates an illusion of authenticity. Through theatrical props—artificial snowy backdrops, Alpine architecture, and pastoral symbols—Smith did not merely reproduce the mountain; he shaped it according to the audience’s predefined expectations. In this process, the mountain lost its material reality and became a representation, reduced to visual and emotional associations.

This process of transforming the landscape into spectacle and fiction remains relevant today. Media images, tourist postcards, advertising campaigns, and personal narratives produce mountain landscapes as symbolic constructs, detached from the actual experience of being in the mountains.

Sanja Merćep does not view the landscape as a fixed scene but as a dynamic process in which personal experiences, cultural symbols, and media representations intertwine. Rather than a literal depiction of nature, her work explores how landscapes are constructed through perception, fictionalization, and reinterpretation. Through a conceptual approach to photography and the deconstruction of personal experience, the artist questions the visual and cultural codes that shape our understanding of mountain spaces, analyzing the layers of meaning attributed to them.

The visual language of her photographs is based on subtlety and precision, focusing on details and materiality. Objects photographed in a studio against pastel backgrounds—such as stones, mountaineering equipment, and cartographic representations—function as symbols of the mountaineering experience. Captured like museum exhibits, they lose their original function and take on new meaning within the gallery space. Their displacement from their original context further emphasizes the relativity and fluidity of landscape perception. What was once part of a direct experience now appears as an artifact, a trace, or a visual sign suggesting the complexity of the relationship between landscape and its representation.

The objects are arranged with minimal interventions—standing alone, leaning against one another, or floating in space—suggesting a delicate balance between the real and the imagined. The compositions are reduced and thoughtfully structured to maintain an introspective character. Soft, diffused light and a refined dynamic of earthy and pastel tones blur the boundary between documentary and staged representation, creating a multi-layered narrative structure.

With the photographic series “In Reality and in Fiction,” the artist explores the ways in which we shape, reinterpret, and inscribe meanings into landscapes, particularly in the context of mountain spaces. Moving away from traditional pastoral or spectacular depictions, Sanja Merćep deconstructs conventional notions of landscape, viewing it not as a fixed visual fact but as a dynamic space where perception, memory, and cultural narratives overlap. Through photographic experiments and staged scenes, she questions the boundary between documentary and fictional landscapes, raising a fundamental question: do we see space as it is, or as we imagine it?

SANJA MERĆEP (Zagreb, 1989) graduated in photography from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Previously, she graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb and then worked for several years in the advertising industry. This experience shaped her artistic interest, directing it toward exploring themes such as the commercialization of public space and depicting hidden dimensions of contemporary life. In 2024, she won the Second Prize “Ivan Kožarić” for her work „Obala“ (2021–2023), awarded by the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb. So far, she has held three solo exhibitions (Galerija Otok – ARL, Galerija f8 – ADU, Galerija Spot). She is the author of the short film „Skoro smo se čule“.

CURATOR / Jelena Šimundić Bendić

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

TRANSLATION / Katarina Duplančić Dugopoljac

DOCUMENTATION / Glorija Lizde

SETUP / Sanja Merćep, 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