Shaped through the fragmented, selective memories triggered by sounds, smells and taste, and by fetishistic, ritualistic as well as lethargic practices, nostalgia serves as a comfort zone, a safe haven from the uncertainty of the future.

 

It is often an internalized, intimate rebellion, a sluggish criticism of the present. Through observing nostalgic artifacts – objects, sounds, spaces – and nostalgic practices and rituals, this project aims to discuss these contradictory dimensions of nostalgia as global and local, inclusive and exclusive, retrograde and adoptive, reflective and reproductive, repetitive and impulsive sentiment

 

"On Nostalgia" is an on-going project meant to be developed through a longer period of time on different locations. I started working on this idea as part of an art expedition initiated by Sound Development City 2014.  On a three-week trip  from  Latvia across Estonia and ending in Finland,  I collected traces of “Baltic” nostalgia – personal stories, memories, objects, images, rhythms of everyday life, and atmospheres. I wanted to observe and discover these three Baltic countries through the nostalgic memories of their inhabitants and their sentimental artefacts, to enter intimate spaces – small safe zones, getaways floating between the past and the future, unique and familiar, at home and away from home. 

 

At the final presentation for SDC 2014, held in Helsinki , I created a documentary 3 channel video installation projected in this old harbour warehouse (Galleria Huuto). The video transformed an empty industrial space into a series of  ambiances and settings that changed according to the narratives (intimate stories, interviews) delivered through sound. 

 

I continued with "Nostalgia" project at KKA residency in Vienna where I exhibited two images from Nostalgia series as billboard size photographs placed on the exterior of at Fluc, art space and club in Vienna. This was part of the  groupe exhibition named "Zones of Transition".  At the final KKA residency exhibition in Vienna I preseted "Notes on Nostalgia"  / an audo visual instalation and a selection of photographs.

 

"Notes on Nostalgia" is second  in a row of video essays created for the On Nostalgia  project. This documentary/video work is a collage of intimate interviews, images and personal reflections on memories and remembering. It was recorded and photographed during my journeys through the Baltics, Germany, the Balkans, Hungary and Austria .

 

More about the project (SDC)

 

Interview for Novi list "Nostalgija odjekuje kroz većinu slika koje me okupiraju" (In Croatian)