You are kindly invited to join us for the presentation and workshop by Krater collective (Danica Sretenović and Gaja Mežnarić Osole) Feral occupations on 26 March at 5 pm!
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Feral Occupations
Krater collective feat. Danica Sretenović and Gaja Mežnarić Osole
26 March 2024 at 5 pm
Krater’s right to exist is continually negotiated by reinventing work in culture to foster “ethics of situated responsibility linked to a politics of location”*. Departing from the green-washing paradigm while working with(in) pioneering ecosystem at the long-abandoned construction pit in Ljubljana, Krater Collective relies on feral actions to alter institutional inertia while giving a voice to unregulated urban nature, testing non-exploitative economies and claiming new typologies of creative production. Starting with an exploration of the joys and awkwardness of the coalition between ecology/sustainability and art/creativity, the lecture presents efforts of a transdisciplinary collective to sustain itself regardless of unfavorable circumstances, which threaten to extinct the site and its multispecies community of practice. Feral Occupations is a series of tactics performed to intervene existing spatial and cultural politics leaning toward reproduction of relations that preserve power positions intact in a way to situate Krater’s feral logic as a proof that things can be done the other way. Banquet of Feral Occupations, Feral Cartography Cycling Tour, Japanese knotweed Harvest, Take-away Feral Contract & Speaking Mushroom Manifesto, Events of Slow Disturbances, Guerilla photography & Uninvited Projections all suggest a desire of the Krater generation to engage with what appears to be out of their reach: City. Economy. Cartography. Production of discourses. Appropriation of history. Modes of working. Institutions. Mowing regimes. Administration. Art Venues. Politics of public exposure.
* On nomadism: A conversation with Rosi Braidotti, excerpt of an interview published in Transeuropa Magazine, 2010. https://politicalcritique.org/world/2018/nomadism-braidotti/
Following the lecture on Feral Occupations, participants will be invited to engage in an urgent creative exercise, brainstorming ways to collectively sustain Krater through membership models, fundraising campaigns, or other forms of collectivization of financial resources to ensure Krater’s public production and care for its multispecies existence.
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Danica Sretenović and Gaja Mežnarić Osole practice feral curatorial politics within Krater collective – a group of transdisciplinary enthusiasts that took courage to reinvent their respective professions, studios and working conditions to act as guardians of rewilded ecosystem at pending construction site in Ljubljana. Since the Krater ecosystem is continually at verge of extinction, the collective cultivate creative resilience in face of urgency by inventing feral tactics, events and formats, treating administrative and other restrictions as an object of artistic interventions. This action asks for unexpected alliances and inventive economies to open up territories of regenerative, relational and critical creative practice. In 2023 the practice received special mention from 35th biennial of Graphic Art Ljubljana and the highest national prize in architecture for public space – Plečnik’s Medal.
Alongside to site-specific work such as cultivation of biodiversity Krater hosts internationally acclaimed educational formats (The School of Feral Grounds), laboratories to experiment with biomaterials (Notweed Paper, invasive plants, mycelia and clay), advocacy strategies (banquets, mediations, public speeches), exhibitions (Forbidden vernaculars BIO27, Feral Occupations GB35), conferences (The Feral Palace), and other public programmes (Krater Vibroscapes, Harvesting Japanese Knotweed, Feral Cartographies Cycling, Tea Ceremonies, Little School of Urban Ecologies etc) – to introduce new typologies of work in culture. Krater was a finalist of New European Bauhaus Prizes in 2021.
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The event is part of 02_2024’s public programme, the first public output of the collaboration between Škuc Gallery and international curators Giulia Menegale and Tīna Pētersone, taking place from 12 March until the end of the month.
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Photo: Sara Rman