The DIVA News page refers to public presentations, exhibitions, screenings, publications in Slovenia and on the international scene, connected to participations of DIVA Station Video Archive and the video artists who had contributed their video artworks to the archive. We also introduce events organised by DIVA Station (SCCA-Ljubljana) in order to promote its content and usage.
In May and June, DIVA Station traveled a lot to different European cities. In Celje, participated at the exhibition Let’s Roll Our Sleeves Up! in Likovni salon Gallery, in Zagrebat the screening of The world is obliged to live you II., at the Multimedia Center and in Warsaw at the Revisiting Heritage conference at the National Museum.
On May 9, we celebrate the Day of Victory over Fascism, each year a more up-to-date topic. We searched through the keywords of Nazism, resistance, war, discrimination in our DIVA video archive and found a great deal of works. Our choice:Mirko Simić, Anti Nazy Mix (199); Evelin Stermitz, Koncentracijsko taborišče Ljubelj (2004); Marko A. Kovačič, No More Heroes Anymore (1992).
On World Book Day, April 23, you can also read differently - in moving images. At the SCCA and with the help of video archive, we were already preparing exhibitions that linked the book and the video/fine arts. On DIVA Station video archive you can find video works that discuss reading, books, and literature. Our choice: Ksenija Čerče, fall... (2005-2008), Amir Muratović, From the Life of Books (2010/2011), Dejan Habicht, 12 Boring Poems (2013).
This is the DIVA’s hundred news! DIVA Station is proud of its nomination for the Europa Nostra Awards 2018, a European cultural heritage award. We were nominated by the Slovenian Cinematheque, which sees a lot of potential in our work and program, since we connect the cultural heritage with contemporary art. Unfortunately, this time DIVA Station is not among the winners, however, the winners will be announced in June at the European Cultural Heritage Summit in Berlin (18-24 June 2018).
At this year’s celebration of International Women's Day, we browsed through video works in our archive DIVA. We searched across the key words: activism, human rights, social gender, emancipation, feminism, resistance, desire ... and found many works. You can find the hits yourself, while we have selected for the FOCUS section below three of the outstanding women artists' performances: Maja Slavec, Woman Beauty Power Less (2008), Martina Bastarda, Mateja Ocepek, Nataša Skušek, Pissing (2002), Ana Čigon, Dear Ladies, thank you (2011).
In the Espace Apollonia gallery in Strasbourg we successfully opened the exhibition Projected Visions. From art in the urban context to fiction and dystopia (January 26 - February 25, 2018). The curator Barbara Borčić selected works that are related to urban and public space in everyday, utopian and dystopic dimensions. The exhibition also received the first media release on TV Alsace20, soon followed by a catalogue of the project e.city – Ljubljana.
The Old and the New, an authors' documentary on the Ljubljana sub-cultural scene in the 1980s, was presented in ACUD MACHT NEU in Berlin. Natalie Gravenor, a festival programmer, distributor and curator, selected it along with some music videos by Borghesia group for the series Sounding Images: Sounding Images #10: Borghesia – Industrial Music, Multimedia Art and Queer Activism in 1980s Yugoslavia.
The Old and the New reconstructs the lively bustle of the "Ljubljana subculture scene" in the eighties, and it was made by two insiders, Zemira Alajbegović in Neven Korda. With minute and swift editing of the picture and sound, the makers have succeeded in compiling a number of documents and video shots - made between 1982 and 1988 under the label FV Video - into an hour- long narrative. The video combines the emotions and personal views with the socially critical subculture and the wider historical context of the Yugoslav socialist system.
The series Sounding Images, organized by Fiona McGovern, focuses on different approaches to documenting and visualizing musical performances, scenes and movements as well as close collaborations between filmmakers and composers, including soundtracks. The aim of it is to open up a wide range of perspectives on the interrelation of music, experimental filmmaking, and video art, including issues regarding race, class, sexuality and gender. Invited guests will discuss selected works and a short introduction to each screening will provide background information, sometimes a Q&A will follow. Among the artist that were already presented in the program are also Steina and Woody Vasulka as well as Diamanda Galas.
ACUD MACHT NEU is an art collective based in Berlin. In 2014, the initiative saved the Kunsthaus ACUD from bankruptcy and has since set in motion interdisciplinary projects on the intersection of art, music, performance and digital media in their spaces Studio, Club and Gallery.
DIVA Station each year marks the UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage – 27th of October. Our goal is to emphasize the meaning of audio-visual archives as an important part of cultural heritage. This year we've been joined at the celebration in the Slovenian Cinematheque by Ursula Blickle Video Archive from Vienna. Two video programs were screened: Chance Meeting from Ursula Blickle Archiv by Claudia Slanar and The World Is Obliged to Live You from DIVA Station by Anita Budimir. The event concluded with the audio-visual project Interface Fractures IV. & V. by Luka Prinčič. more
In cooperation with the Short Film Festival FeKK Ljubljana, we prepared the first edition of the laboratory (SCCA LAB), which will become the constant of the festival. This time, it was dedicated to the music video. In the SCCA Project Room we set up an exhibition / video ambience - a combination of the DIVA Station (older video clips) with the selection of the FEKK Festival (the newest clips) - with interesting interactions between the sound in the image, between the past and the contemporary. What followed was a lively panel about video as a genre linking music and image, a story and sound, comparing also music video production and procedures of video clips in the past and today.
