So, what remains after three years of intense work, exhibitions, conversations, and collaborations? Or, if we dig a little deeper (and this is already the fourth triennial catalogue of the NMG@PRAKTIKA cycle) – what remains after 12 years of “hanging around Praktika,” or after 20 years of extra-institutional work, effort, and all that it brings and takes away? Or, if I truly go all the way (and I always have, it’s the only path I know) – what exactly does a lifelong professional focus on the marginal, the neglected, the overlooked in this space and time bring and take away? When I consciously choose the path of subversion, activism, and social change, what was left in the memory of the body?
What remains is much more than mere documentation.
What endures is an echo, the vibration of ideas, affects, and questions that spill from one work into another, creating a complex portrait of our present moment.
NGO Mavena – 36 of Her Miracles presents the new three-year catalog NMG@PRAKTIKA 2022–2024, titled Spaces of Resonance: Notes on Fragility and Resistance (2022–2024) – the fourth volume in a series of publications that both document and critically reflect on twelve years of the NMG@PRAKTIKA programme in Gallery Praktika and over two decades of extra-institutional work at the edges of the cultural field.
The catalog brings together more than twenty exhibitions and artistic projects, curatorial texts, artistic documentation, and theoretical and reflective contributions. Rather than a “neutral” overview of the programme, it operates as a temporary map of resonances – encounters between artists, the Youth Centre (Dom mladih), the city of Split, subcultures, archives and fragile personal memories.
In the introductory essay “Spaces of Resonance: Notes on Fragility and Resistance (2022–2024)”, editor and author Natasha Kadin revisits the last three years of Mavena’s and NMG@PRAKTIKA’s activity through three interwoven lines of inquiry:
- Archaeology of the present – digging through layers of the city, subcultures and intimate archives in order to resist the amnesia of the contemporary moment;
- Space as battlefield and refuge – treating the Youth Centre and Gallery Praktika not only as venues, but as living organisms, sites of conflict, care and (re)imagination;
- Ethics of care in times of fragility – following artistic practices that respond to war, ecological catastrophe, precarity and social fragmentation through gestures of care, softness, solidarity and survival.
Through the works of artists such as Lucija Bužančić, Tina Spahija, Vita Jončić, Marko Dajak, Sanja Bistričić, Filip Milković, Andrea Resner, Un–war Space Lab, Arbajt Kolektiv, Nives Sertić and many others, the catalog traces how city, body, memory and community are constantly negotiated and reshaped. In this process, NMG@PRAKTIKA appears not only as a gallery space, but as a laboratory, archive, field of struggle and, at times, a shelter.
The three-year cycle summarized in this publication reaffirms the core mission of Mavena and NMG@PRAKTIKA: to remain a space that supports artistic risk, experimentation and critical reflection, and to provide a platform for younger and less established artists, as well as those working outside dominant currents.
Spaces of Resonance: Notes on Fragility and Resistance (2022-2024)
Natasha Kadin
Running through the pages of a catalogue that encapsulates three years of work, life, and art feels much like rummaging through an old family archive. Each page, each photograph, each text opens a window into a specific moment, while simultaneously evoking memories of what happened before and after. Looking back at Mavena’s program and the NMG@PRAKTIKA platform from 2022 to 2024, what unfolds before me is not just a sequence of projects, but a network of profound and unexpected resonances. Like Filip Milković, who scans layers of family albums in search of meaning in the texture of paper and the traces of time, or Sanja Bistričić, who, through fragments of experimental film, attempts to reconstruct the fragile fabric of memory, I too seek in this overview the threads that connect seemingly different artistic worlds.
So, what remains after three years of intense work, exhibitions, conversations, and collaborations?
Or, if we dig a little deeper (and this is already the fourth triennial catalogue of the NMG@PRAKTIKA cycle) – what remains after 12 years of “hanging around Praktika,” or after 20 years of extra-institutional work, effort, and all that it brings and takes away? Or, if I truly go all the way (and I always have, it’s the only path I know) – what exactly does a lifelong professional focus on the marginal, the neglected, the overlooked in this space and time bring and take away? When I consciously choose the path of subversion, activism, and social change, what was left in the memory of the body?
What remains is much more than mere documentation.
What endures is an echo, the vibration of ideas, affects, and questions that spill from one work into another, creating a complex portrait of our present moment. This catalogue is therefore not conceived as a final, closed archive, but as a provisional map of these resonances. Its fourth volume serves as an invitation to further reflection and dialogue, casting a gaze towards the future. Personally and professionally, what remains for me is the duty to apologize to my own body for exposing it to all this, not without consequence.
Archaeology of the Present: Digging Through Layers of Meaning
If there is one dominant method that has permeated the program during the past three years, it is archaeology. Not the archaeology of the distant past, but of our immediate present. In a world oversaturated with new images and information that are constantly erased, the artists we presented find radicality in the act of excavation – in patiently unearthing layers of meaning hidden in discarded objects, forgotten stories, and disappearing urban spaces.
This archaeological impulse is most seen in works that explore the city of Split as a living organism and a palimpsest. The works of Lucija Bužančić, Tina Spahija, and Vita Jončić function as urban archaeological probes. Bužančić, in her animated film Saturation, juxtaposes today’s tourist façade with archival footage from 1988, excavating two layers of the city and our relation to it. Spahija, in her project The Art of Decadence, “unearths” forgotten modernist heritage (Poljud, Koteks, Split 3) and reanimates it through fashion design, giving it a new body and visibility. Jončić, in Transformation of Memory, attempts to archive the fragile landscape of Dalmatia before processes of urbanization and tourism completely erase it. They all act as guardians of urban memory, recording the scars and transformations happening before our very eyes.
Archaeology continues on the margins of social life. Marko Dajak becomes an archaeologist of subculture with his Garnitura Pokreta, documenting the ephemeral traces and handwriting of graffiti writers on trains, rescuing them from oblivion and giving them a new life inside the gallery. Similarly, in his photographic series Four Walls, Ivan Buvinić archives the social life and spontaneous architecture of bowling courts, those specific public spaces that are slowly disappearing under the pressure of urban change. Both redirect our gaze to what is invisible or despised, showing how authentic forms of community and resistance peek from these marginal zones.
Finally, the archaeological impulse dives into the most intimate area: the space of personal memory. The works of Filip Milković and Sanja Bistričić represent deeply personal excavations of their archives. Milković’s project Decades emerged after his grandmother, the archivist of family history, suffered neurological damage. His act of scanning old photographs and albums is not just a reproduction but an attempt to reach the fragile essence of memory through the materiality of the object, namely the paper’s texture, faded colors, and notes on the back. In her film I think I remember, Bistričić used optical tools and the deconstruction of filmic image to visualize the very process of remembering: its fragmentariness, unreliability, and poetry. This archaeological approach, whether focused on the city, subculture, or family, is an act of resistance against the amnesia of the contemporary moment. It highlights the importance of layers, traces, and stories that have been suppressed, and sees that the future cannot be built without a deep understanding of the past.
Space as a Battlefield and a Refuge
Parallel to the exploration of time and memory, our three-year program has systematically mapped the concept of space, treating it not as a passive backdrop but as an active protagonist (a site of social struggle as well as a place for creating new, imaginary shelters). The platform NMG@PRAKTIKA, located within the Youth Center (Dom mladih) complex (itself a symbol of incompleteness and potential) has, during the most unstable phase of this fragile giant, when ideas, decisions, and solutions regarding its restoration changed almost daily, proven to be an ideal laboratory for such explorations.
One series of works dealt with direct critique of the space in which it emerged. Artists did not merely exhibit in the gallery; they deconstructed the gallery itself and its conventions. Nikica Jurković, in the project Everything Is Possible, transforms the exhibition opening into a party, shifting the focus from the art object to the social event and audience participation. Tomislav Hršak goes a step further, leaving the gallery for the neighborhood and declaring an ordinary metal carpet-beating structure a monument (an ironic commentary on the inflation and banality of today’s monument culture). Arbajt Kolektiv and Marianna Nardini use the Youth Center itself as material for critique. In the project Arbyte 1.8, Arbajt questions who and how “built” the Center, alluding to years of unpaid labor and the enthusiasm of the independent scene. In the performance From Dust ’Till Dawn, Nardini uses her body, gathered debris, and ritual gestures to map both the physical and symbolic neglect and vitality of the space, treating it as a “maternal interior” that gives birth and nurtures.
These works pose essential questions: Whose space is this? What purpose does it serve? How can we liberate and reimagine it?
In contrast to this critical deconstruction, another line of works focused on constructing new, imaginary, and contemplative spaces. Gaia Radić introduced us to her digital Babylonian Hanging “Gardens”, exploring the boundaries between the natural and the virtual, reality and simulacrum. Nives Sertić, through immersive video landscapes, invited us to slow down and contemplate, creating within the gallery a space for meditation on natural cycles and our lost connection with them. Ivana Škvorčević, in her installation Tempting the Image, built environments from minimalist forms, light, and shadow, inviting us not to interpret space but to feel it. Hrvoje Spudić, with his Rotoprojektor 4 (Rotoprojector 4), confronted us with the illusion of our perception of space and time, translating the outer world into a hypnotic, rotating panorama within the gallery.
These artists offer spaces of refuge (places for alternative perception and escape from the bizarre and irrational everyday reality of the Youth Center) where, in the multitude of plans and ideas, in an ocean of often ideologically and practically conflicting solutions, one easily forgets the most important premise, found in the very first word of this weeping giant’s name: it is, above all, a Home. And a home should be a refuge.
Finally, some works explore the body in space, particularly the female body as a site where social codes are inscribed and personal liberation unfolds. In her hybrid project Carnival Tent Rusts in the Evening Breeze, Sonja Pregrad questions the objectivity of the body, movement, and performance, playfully blurring the boundaries between subject and object, performer and audience. Andrea Resner, in her installation Girl Who Kisses Butterflies, creates a hyper-feminine, soft environment as a space of healing and empowerment, celebrating “soft power” feminism and vulnerability as a form of strength.
Across all these approaches, space emerges as a dynamic force, and the program NMG@PRAKTIKA is not merely a platform that utilizes it, but one that actively produces and interrogates it, expanding the field of artistic practice from gallery walls to city streets and the inner landscapes of our consciousness.
The Ethics of Care in Times of Fragility
When all threads are connected, it becomes clear that beneath the often analytical, conceptual, and critical approaches lies a deeply ethical stance uniting almost all the presented works. In a world marked by wars, ecological disasters, economic precarity, and social fragmentation, these artists respond by developing a poetics and politics of fragility and care.
Fragility is omnipresent. We see it in its most literal form in Marynka Dovhanych’s Wrath & Sorrow, a poignant audiovisual diary describing the personal and collective trauma of war in Ukraine. We see it in the research of the Un-war Space Lab collective, which maps “human-non-natural disturbances” (ecological scars and toxic habitats left behind by war destruction). Fragility also appears in the exploration of urban decay by Tina Spahija or Lucija Bužančić, in the precarity of artistic labor in Arbajt Kolektiv, or in the fragility of memory in the works of Sanja Bistričić and Filip Milković.
As a response to this pervasive fragility, artists develop practices of care. Care becomes a key artistic strategy (a quiet yet steadfast form of resistance). Andrea Resner speaks of healing and “softness” as resistance to patriarchal logics. Marianna Nardini describes her performance as “an act of care”, and her hanging on a rope as “an act of tenderness” toward the Youth Center and the community within it. Vita Jončić attempts to preserve the memory of nature as an act of care and resistance to urban concretization. Toni Mijač, in the project Turn into an Ear, carefully collects and archives fragments of everyday speech, granting them new poetic value. Manja Ristić and Aleksandar Lazar listen to and record the underwater sounds of Dobra Voda (Good Water), caring for the sonic memory of the place. The Curatorial School, through the project Reminders for the Future, explicitly advocates solidarity and sharing as models of resistance to dominant narratives.
In these works, art is not only a diagnosis but also a therapy. It offers survival models that are not necessarily loud or aggressive but are grounded in empathy, persistence, and care (care for discarded objects, forgotten stories, marginalized communities, and one’s own psyche). This is a quiet yet powerful politics of survival in a world that favors speed, aggression, and erasure. It is an appeal to those who approach this proud giant without respect for all that it has opened up and everyone it has embraced with its vast concrete arms.
Looking Ahead
This three-year cycle (summarized on the following pages) reaffirms the continuity of the mission of Mavena and the NMG@PRAKTIKA platform: to be a space that supports artistic risk, experimentation, and critical reflection. As shown in our previous three-year catalogues, our dedication to providing a platform for emerging and under-recognized artists, as well as those working outside dominant currents, remains unwavering.
The themes that surfaced during this period (the archaeology of the present, space as protagonist, and the ethics of care) are no coincidence. They are a precise reflection of the times we live in. They demonstrate that artists are seismographs of social change, capable of articulating both our collective anxieties and our hopes.
As we close this chapter (with deep gratitude to all the artists, curators, collaborators, and audiences who have shaped it), our gaze turns forward. The challenges we face will not disappear. The need for spaces of resonance, dialogue, and solidarity will only grow. Our task (and our promise) is to persist in creating and maintaining such spaces and communities: places where fragility can be acknowledged, where care can be practiced, and where art can, at least for a moment, offer a different view of the world.
And with this, we solemnly promise to continue caring for our beloved gentle giant, so that it may remain what a Home is meant to be – resistance and refuge.
IMPRESSUM
Editor and author of the introductory text: Natasha Kadin
Curators of NMG@PRAKTIKA 2022–2024: Katarina Duplančić Dugopoljac, Natasha Kadin, Vedran Perkov, Jasmina Šarić, Ivana Vukušić, Tina Vukasović Đaković
Exhibition set-up / technical production: Franko Sardelić Kolinac, artists and curators
Documentation: Glorija Lizde, Tihana Mandušić
Design and layout (catalog 2022–2024): Ena Jurov
Graphic design / exhibition visuals: Nikola Križanac
Translation, proofreading and copy-editing: Katarina Duplančić Dugopoljac
The publication NMG@PRAKTIKA 2022–2024 was produced with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Split and Kultura nova Foundation.
Split, 2025
NMG@PRAKTIKA — Previous Three-Year Catalogues
Before this, NMG@PRAKTIKA had already written three three-year chapters — from the early days of “hanging out at Praktika”, through the expansion of formats and audiences, to the years that truly tested the scene’s endurance. Each catalogue was visually shaped by a different designer we collaborated with — Rafaela Dražić (2013–2015), Nikola Križanac (2016–2018), and Petra Davidenko (2019–2021) — while the introductory texts, alongside project lead Natasha Kadin, were written by the curators who most closely collaborated on the programme in those specific periods: Tonči Kranjčević Batalić (2013–2015), Lana Beović (2016–2018), and Katarina Duplančić (2019–2021).
