I’ll Turn You Into a Laurel Tree! – Lovran Neighbourhood

The natural elements of the sea and the mountains on one side and the community framed by its historic core on the other, are blended together with a modern culture and arts programme that focuses on the revival of the historic centre. The Slovenian collective Svetlobna Gverila and the artists Tilen Sepič and Katja Paternoster will introduce visitors to space and time through the media of light through lowering Clouds and interfering Fantastic Vegetation in the gardens and green islands of Lovran’s old town.

With the exhibition Folium Lauri Perforatum II, the artist Vladimir Gudac introduces us to the hidden messages of laurel leaves that speak about the ecological crisis of the world around us and subtly emphasizes the critique of ecology and tourism in the local area.

Plesni art labaratorij is presented through two video dance works Tanec z ovcu and Žena s idejama, and through an intermedial approach, contemporary dance expression is presented by Senka Baruška and Fani Hajnal Tutek.

The European dimension of the whole event is brought by Aindrias de Staic, who is a guest from the Irish Galway Neighbourhood. An exceptional musician, multi-instrumentalist, actor and narrator who will take us on a trip to Ireland and back with a violin because the European neighbourhood of Lovran is Ireland – more precisely Kinvara, which is part of the program Small Towns Big Ideas – Galway 2020, and through which they met, fell in love and set out to exchange ideas and programs.

PROGRAMME
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Venue: Laurus Gallery

6:00 pm – Opening ceremony – Protocol and handover of the time capsule from the Malinska Neighbourhood – the programme will be opened by representatives of the Lovran Municipality, representatives of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, the City of Rijeka and Rijeka 2020

6:20 pm – Folium Lauri Perforatum II Vladimir Gudac – exhibition, Laurus Gallery

Through ten years of observing and collecting laurel leaves in the Kvarner Bay, the artist Vladimir Gudac has put together an “alphabet” of symbolic signs created by the corrosion of laurel leaves that seem to suggest an unknown alphabet. With these “texts”, the author simulates the covers of books or pages of important files that are incomprehensible to viewers, but in fact they speak very clearly of the ecological crisis that is aestheticized on this occasion, creating a trap of oxymoronic stylistic procedure. With this exhibition, the author continues to elaborate his artistic research, supplementing it with several objects, photographs and “texts” that ironically further aestheticize the ecological crisis of the modern world. Criticism of the local environment, which cultivates a kind of profitable optimism through the tourism agenda, is especially emphasized. The exhibition at the Laurus Gallery consists of two parts, one with works already exhibited at the Lamparna Gallery in 2017, as well as newly created “objects” and “texts”.

6:40 pm – Fantastic Vegetation – light installation – Katja Paternoster, Svetlobna Gverila (SLO)

The mentor of the Fantastic Vegetation workshop, artist Katja Paternoster, is an architect by vocation but she is also active in the field of light design. She has exhibited her light installations in several editions of the light festivals. The workshop participants made insects and plants from recyclable plastic items.

6:50 pm – Clouds – light installation – Tilen Sepič, Svetlobna Gverila (SLO)

The Clouds workshop was designed and is led by the industrial designer and inter-medial artist Tilen Sepič. He is currently researching and developing his own products in the areas of light design and light-sound installations. The Participants, through the workshop, explored different materials and light as a media and, together with the artist, created the clouds that are part of the exhibition.

7:00 pm – Tanec z ovcu and Žena s idejama – video dance works by the Plesni art laboratoriji, Senka Baruška and Fani Hajnal Tutek.

Plesni art labaratoriji is presented through two video dance works Tanec z ovcu and Žena s idejama. Tanec z ovcu celebrates tradition as a starting point and tells the story of the emigration to the promised land of America in the last century, which often began with the Lovran lantern, sung in the song Mamma Mia Dammi Cento Lire by Lidija Percan. The migrations that marked this area are presented in a contemporary way that combines the authentic and the new through costumes, instruments, musical compositions and choreography. Žena s idejama, on the other hand, contemplates the thesis of “philosophical greatness that, with different approaches, points to the concept of a priori mental image”. By combining contemporary dance and philosophy, the dancers create their personal composition based on the reflection and development of the IDEA. The idea of an individual also becomes a group composition that is created in interaction with others. The movement that unites different philosophical positions on the IDEA is blended with the natural scenery of the site where they are performed by the sea to create a composition with a rhythmic repetition like sea waves, which, like the sea and the rhythmic waves, with each new wave, with each new dance, will become a new and unique choreography.

ABOUT THE I’LL TURN YOU INTO A LAUREL TREE! PROGRAMME

In the past three years, the activities of the Lovran Neighbourhood have taken place through different segments of the program integrated into the 27 Neighbourhoods flagship, Rijeka 2020, the European Capital of Culture. The initiative was carried out by members of the Interval association. The Lovran Neighbourhood has developed an active approach with the community through the following programs:

Living room – a program that was an integral part of the 27 Neighbourhoods flagship in each of the neighbourhoods included spaces and facilities that encourage meetings between neighbourhoods and neighbours. It is a space for socialisation, exchange and expressing support, in which at any time guests and visitors are able to get to know the neighbourhood, the initiators, get information, meet neighbourhood residents and/or participate in neighbourhood activities that take place in the area as a year-round activity and space of encounters. The purpose of launching such spaces is to create a pleasant atmosphere of socialisation, exchange and support in the neighbourhood. The spaces also served as open offices for neighbourhood teams and hosted smaller-scale events (e.g., retirement clubs, poetry evenings, storytelling, etc.). The Lovran Neighbourhood held such events in the space of the city tower.

China in exotic locations – through PP27S, a county network of cinemas has been developed in exotic locations involving different neighbourhoods and film screenings are held in often atypical locations adapted for them. The program of informal gatherings is held in cooperation with the KineDok network – a joint project of seven European film organizations for the alternative distribution of creative documentaries. The network aims to interest a wider audience in documentaries, to present authors and their films to the public, and to develop a dialogue on socially important topics. In addition to KineDok, the program is created in collaboration with other festivals and distributors such as the Liburnia Film Festival. The location of the cinema in Lovran was the yard near the church of St. John the Baptist in the old city core, the area of the House of the Lovran “Guc”, the Gradsko kupalište beach and the lower school playground.

Intergenerational Dance is a program that has been halted due to the Covid-19 situation.

Vladimir Gudac, born in 1951 in Opatija, independent artist, member of the HDLU (Croatian Association of Artists) and HZSU (Croatian Freelance Artists’ Association). He was the head of the Student Center Gallery from 1980 to 1990, and with Dubravko Budić, he co-founded the activist art group Tok (1972-1973). He is engaged in interdisciplinary media research using photography, video, installation and performance.

PAL – Plesni Art Labaratorij is the first art organization in Rijeka founded in 2004. The leaders are Senka Baruška (contemporary dance) and Melita Staničić Sorola (art). PAL is conceived as an artistic oasis intended for artists to work, research, experiment in the field of dance and fine arts, complementing the work with inter-medial and multimedia forms. Since 2013, Ičići and Lovran have become the headquarters of PAL, where the program is promoted and created in specific locations, videographs, exhibitions and various thematic units of contemporary dance heritage, in both urban and rural areas.

Aindrias de Staic is an actor, musician and one of the Irish storytellers of the new generation. He was born on 7 November 1977 in Galway, Ireland. His rich and rare style of playing the violin is unique to the west of Ireland, as is his way of storytelling and humour. He is a graduate of the University of Limerick Music Programme, with international experience working in the fields of music, theatre, film and broadcasting. He has an honours master’s degree in Community Music.

Aindrias’ personal musical style is rather rough and wild, more thanks to the passion of the moment than to technical precision. Although he rarely records, he is often sought after precisely because of the influence of his live performances.  Thanks to his status in the traditional art scene, Aindrias regularly works at T4G where he hosts music and art shows. He is the founder of the Latchiko project, which combines the Irish language, gipsy violin and Spanish flamenco percussion. The Latchikos regularly perform as lead performers at international festivals such as the Vancouver Folk Fest and Woodford Folk Fest, Australia. Aindrias also won a Best Radio Comedy award in May 2018 at the Celtic Media Awards in Llenelli, Wales for his storytelling-musical piece The Man from Moogaga. Link: http://www.aindrias.com/

Svetlobna gverila is an art collective and the eponymous festival of light installations in different spaces whose basic form of expression is the media of light. Light as a medium in contemporary art brings new views into the spaces of the city and creates new images in a soft and receptive way by placing the viewer in correlation with light objects in space, creating another template on the idea of cultivating space. In 2020, the Svetlobne gverile team will illuminate the streets of the old town of Lovran with two light installations Clouds whose author is Tilen Sepič, and Fantastic Vegetation whose author is the artist and architect Katja Paternoster. Both light installations were made through participatory workshops with the expert guidance of the Svetlobne Gverile artists.