Mending the Invisible

Mending the Invisible is an artistic project by Ivana Müller and Bojana Kunst that tries to mend holes in the social tissue and weave threads of time and space between various city realities through poetic, humorous and symbolic actions.

Mending the Invisible will, in future years, come to life in various cities – firstly in Ljubljana during the 2024 Mladi Levi festival.

This work proposes a performative, participatory and poetic practice of collective actions of mending, during which we ‘repair’ the living environments of the participants in different ways.
These mendings can be historical, political, ecological, ethical, or symbolic in nature. They can draw on the practices of poetry, social activism, performance art, urban planning, anthropology, architecture, etc.
The idea here is not to ‘teach’ the concepts and ideas of ‘repair’ (terms that are much used and problematized these days) but rather to invent and share imaginative, poetic, collective, metaphorical actions of healing and caring.

Mending the Invisible includes performative actions in public spaces, workshops with different local groups and associations, embroidering of a large scale “new” map of the repaired city, and a performance which narrates the actions and presents the map.

Nowadays we have mostly entrusted repair to experts and professionals (urban planners, maintenance workers, architects, infrastructure specialists, health professionals and technicians, lawyers and politicians), often overlooking and forgetting that repair is also something that is still in the process of building communities, not only part of everyday community relations, but also part of a community’s imagination of its future life.
Such repair cannot heal the wounds of our worlds but can maybe alter our individual and collective point of view on the experience of the common, orienting us more towards the lines of care and support. In this practice, we are therefore proposing a performative setting in which we will bring different people together to share various imaginations on collective mending / repair and which can continue for a longer period into unknown future.

CREDITS

  • Idea and concept: Ivana Müller and Bojana Kunst
  • In collaboration with Ajda Bračič, Ana Čigon, Urban Belina and Klara Drnovšek Solina
  • Embroiderers of the new map: Ayşe Baloğlu, Birsen Arslan, Urban Belina, Albin Bobnar, Oskar Cergolj, Jaka Grm, Meryem Işık, Petra Korent, Nino Kovač, Filip Kračman, Žiga Martinjak, Jelena Radić, Selma Yazıcı
  • Storytellers from Ljubljana: Nada Bohinc, Štefka Burger, Milan Dugandžija, Marija Đorđević, Viktor Erjavec, Marija Golob Hvala, Ana Grmek, Marija (Mija) Jezeršek, Cvetka Konjar, Miloš Kosec, Miroslav Meden, Nevenka Miško, No-Border Craft, Gaja Osole, Bojana Piškur, PLAC, Mimi Pučko, Emilija Razpotik, Danica Sretenović (kolektiv Krater), Stanislava Stanić, Neja Tomšič, Tadeja Verdnik, Rok Vevar, Brigita Vtič, Ružica Vučković
  • Produced by: Bunker and Maska
  • Executive producer: Klara Dnovšek Solina
  • Co-produced by: ORLA and Le Pacifique Grenoble
  • Supported by: Ministrstvo za kulturo RS, Mestna občina Ljubljana

Thanks to: Dom upokojencev Center – enota Tabor, NoBorder Craft, Slovenska filantropija, Anica Albreht

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Premiere: August 29th 2024, Mladi levi Festival, Slovenia

Upcoming performances:

Past performances:

  • August 31st 2024, Mladi levi festival 2024, ŠD Tabor, Slovenia
  • August 30nt 2024, Mladi levi festival 2024, ŠD Tabor, Slovenia
  • August 27th 2024, intervention in public space, Ljubljana, Mladi levi festival 2024, Slovenia
  • August 26th 2024, at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., intervention in public space, Ljubljana, Mladi levi festival 2024, Slovenia

The first version of Mending the Invisible (Krpanje nevidnega) will take place in Ljubljana in August 2024 during the Mladi Levi festival, co-produced by Bunker, Maska and ORLA.

The second version of Mending the Invisible (Réparer L’Invisible) took place in November 2024 in Grenoble, hosted and co-produced by Le Pacifique, centre de développement chorégraphique and ORLA.

Bojana Kunst

Is a philosopher, dramaturg, performance art theorist and full professor at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, Justus Liebig University Giessen, where she leads the international master program Choreography and Performance. Her research interests are contemporary performance and dance, art theory, performance and politics, gender studies and philosophy of contemporary art. Her essays appear in numerous journals and publications and she teaches and lectures extensively at various universities in Europe and around the world. Many of her book, including her lates The Life of Art: Transversal Lines of Care were published in Slovenia by Maska.

Ivana Müller

Is a choreographer, dancer and theater maker. Through her choreographic and theatrical work as well as her performances, installations, texts and videos, Ivana Müller explores poetics of language, rethinks the notion of body, movement, voices and their forms of representations, revisits the place of imagination and the imaginary, and questions the idea of participation. She often explores the idea of social choreography, activating communities or groups reflecting on the relationship with surroundings and environments they live in.
She also teaches/has taught frequently, namely at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam, the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, the University Paris 8, P.A.R.T.S. Brussels, DAS Theater -Amsterdam and elsewhere.

Ajda Bračič

Ajda Bračič was born early in the morning on the day of the Assumption of Mary. She studied architecture and works as an editor, curator and researcher. In 2021, she founded Kajža, an NGO which promotes and educates about the reuse of old buildings. In 2022, her literary debut, a collection of short stories Leteči ljudje was published, receiving the kritiško sito and Maruša Krese award.

Urban Belina

Is a postmedia artist, dramaturge, curator and literary translator. In art, he develops more complex interdisciplinary collaborative projects with queer, feminist and decolonial approaches.
As a translator, he participates in numerous programmes of institutions and NGO producers (MGML, MGLC, INZ, Kino Šiška, NDA Slovenia, etc.). His translation of Jasmina Založnik’s book Claiming of Space: New Performative Art Practices in Yugoslavia into the Slovenian language has recently been published by the Maska publishing house, and his translation of Bojana Kunst’s latest book into the English language is also forthcoming.

Ana Čigon

Ana Čigon is an artist that works in the fields of visual arts, film and performance. Her projects tackle social issues and often contain elements of humor, irony and satire. She presents her works at solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and internationally. She received the OHO Group Award for her video art work, while her documentary, experimental films and animations have been part of competition programs at numerous international film festivals.