In October, the sixth edition of the Biennial of the Slovenian Independent Illustration will be held at Kino Šiška. The Biennial will again host more than 20 artists and art collectives from Slovenia and abroad who create at the intersection of art, design and contemporary illustration. At the DobraVaga Gallery, pieces by the 30 authors of the Allstars retrospective project, who participated in the biennials between 2007 and 2017, will be on sale from 23/10 to 20/11. The exhibition will be accompanied by the promotion of the newly released Allstars visual book and a companion zine by Primož Zorko.
The Independent Biennial is a recurrent event that explores the areas and context of usage of contemporary illustration, supports direct authorship, promotes authors, and co-creates the visual culture in Slovenia. Established in 2007, the independent platform has emerged from the need to redefine the idea of illustration. Contemporary creative practices have long since surpassed the outdated view, and the complete lack of response from the professional sphere has pushed the entire generation of young artists to the fringes of artistic practices. With its ideas and goals, the Independent Biennial has facilitated an expansion of contemporary illustration and the wider public understanding of it. The Independent Biennial with its various projects continues to open the space for discourse and dialogue by supporting the upcoming generation of artists.
The way the Independent Biennial is curated is unique: it is the exhibiting authors who select new participants to be invited to the next Biennial. In this way the independent illustrators – the exhibiting authors – autonomously determine the quality of production. The authors are completely free to choose the communication tool of artistic expression that they will present at the event, since the illustration can be used in any contextual sense, even if this is not the end result.
During the Independent Biennial’s ten years of running, we have witnessed the growth of creative practice of illustration and achieved recognition in that there is a source of irreplaceable playful freedom of intermedia expression in the experimental practice of illustration. From one edition to the next, the Biennial showcases a fresh selection of authors who represent the specific aesthetic and subject matter. The Biennial of Independent Illustration pays homage to the authors who, despite the difficult conditions in cultural and visual practice, continue to create with passion, curiosity, imagination, freshness and the independent freedom that is the groundwork of their creativity and lifestyle.
The selected authors of the sixth Independent Biennial are:
Evgen Čopi Gorišek, Gašper Kunšič, Helena Tahir, Irena Orel, Ivana Bajec, Jan Pogorelec, Katarina Goltez, Luka Seme, Martin Mejak x Neža Jurman, Matevž Sterle, Meta Šolar, Milica Golubović, Nataša Seršen Popovič, Nevena Aleksovski, Rok Kleva Ivančič, Simon Kocjančič, Sretan Bor, Stipan Tadić, Tinka Leskovšek, Tjaša Križnar – Pirate Piška and Uroš Vnuk.
You are invited to join us and discover what contemporary illustration is and what it could be.
Organisation: Tretaroka Association and Kino Šiška.
