An exhibition at the publication of the art publication Sterile student. The members of Kolektiv Arhiv (students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (UL ALUO) and the Faculty of Arts (UL FF), both of the University of Ljubljana) address the position and perception of the contemporary student of art and humanities in a multifaceted project.
Ahead of the official opening, a roundtable discussion (in Slovenian language) will be held at 6 pm with assoc. prof. Tomo Stanič, PhD (theoretician and lecturer at UL ALUO), Valerija Intihar (photographer and alumnus of UL ALUO) and Domen Hitrec (painter and current student of UL ALUO). The conversation will be moderated by Lan Rahne.
The Sterile Student project is primarily related to a newly published art publication, created over the past year by UL ALUO and UL FF students. It originates from a series of analogue photographs taken by Rene Ketiš, Jernej Strmšek, and Tim Topić at the closing party of the Open Academy 2023. The publication is accompanied by six short thematic essays by Lan Rahnet. The final product includes tidy design, a creative visual identity, carefully selected printing techniques and paper, and a focus on sustainability, forming a multidisciplinary, integrated narrative. The project serves as a historical document of contemporary young academic culture, which is vibrant, bold, hedonistic, and, at the same time, highly active, precise, and attentive to detail, materials, and multifaceted content. Conversely, it reflects the contradictory atmosphere and harsh reality of the struggling student, who resists market pressures, the compulsive need for spectacle, usefulness, constant productivity, and profit generation – often resulting in a slide towards conformism, an ideational wasteland, and, as noted in the book, “reflexive impotence.” The essays present sophisticated and critical reflections on photography, hyper-productivity, homogenized thought, the academic community, the humanities, and the challenges faced by social science university programmes. Meanwhile, the collection of black-and-white analogue photographs bears witness to a defiant community, student emancipation, and youthful drive. At the exhibition, these elements are complemented by a spatial arrangement of test prints, promotional materials, matrices, papers, and various other components—the building blocks of the publication itself.
Authors
Eva Anzeljc
Rene Ketiš
Špela Koščak
Jan Kranjec
Lan Rahne
Ana Rogač
Jernej Strmšek
Tim Topić
Mentors
Assoc. Prof. Peter Koštrun
Prof. Mladen Dolar, PhD
Curated by
Maša Žekš
Organization: UL ALUO and Kino Šiška, supported by the Council for the Arts of the UL.
Free admission.
