Luiza Margan
Interspaces / exhibition view / Tobacco Museum, Ljubljana, 2009 / curated by Petja Grafenauer
Installation / Measures: variable
Exhited works:
"Projecting welcomes, welcoming projections" / overhead projector, clock, transparent foil / 2008
"Homescapes" / video installation / 2 DVD players, 2 projecting screens, sound / 2008-09
"Spine" / geographical maps / size variable / 2009
"Empty glasses" / video / duration: 1'30'' endless loop / 2008-09

"Empty glasses" video, 01'30", endless loop
The starting point of the work is the observation of certain sociological patterns of our society, of the specific stereotypes and ways of social groups. I was interested in the origin and distortion of the meaning of the custom of breaking the glasses after drinking, often practiced in the eastern european countries. The attributes of that specific action are even more "extreme" when practiced (observed) from a foreign environment. Actually, breaking the glasses after drinking is present in many different cultures, which often believe that the broken shards bring good luck. I am interseted in the acts and costums that apply such a belief, and the obvious disilusion which occurs from the banality of the action itself.
When the gesture of the glass breaking is displaced in a cultural space / context, it intensifies the gap between high and low. It triggers the question of relations and value systems in the context of cultural production and the role of art in the contemporary times of economical and social change.

"Welcoming projections"
A word cut out of transparent foil is rotating above the surface of the overhead projector, projecting a deformed image (meaning) on the wall. The work uses a linguistic form to reflect on the issues of belonging and acceptance in contemporary society.

"Homescapes"
The video installation is part of an ongoing research of specific locations in 2 cities of a temporary residence of the artist –Vienna and Ljubljana. The starting point are Viennese Triester strasse and Ljubljana’s Tržaška cesta, 2 roads that were once part of one big road of the Habsburg Monarchy that was connecting two cities of now different countries. The installation documents specific locations on both of them. It observes fragments of marginal objects and exposes the relations between traces and memory, making a new spatial construct for the viewer to step in. The chosen videos present similarities between both of the spaces: graphical traces of houses that were once standing there. The spaces live their own life. Each of them is an in – between space, an emptiness, an invasion of nature, a desert and a commercial opportunity. The intention was to create an installation where 2 places would interact, mutually creating a new spatial understanding. The interaction of both connects contemporary states with personal and general history, questioning the tendencies of the unpredictable development. The installation connects its traces and connects the fragments of the in- between space into a new "house landscape", an open house structure.
"Spine"
The "Spine" is set as a part of the video installation Homescapes, as a gesture connecting different locations and as an idea for alternative method of geo – spatial reading by "layering" distances. By using geographical maps I am creating a home-party decoration element as a contradictory item connecting issues of displacement and home…




Exhibited:
Tobacco Museum, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 22.01-05.02.2009
Habres and partner gallery, Vienna, Austria, 7.05 - 13.06. 2009