Empty streets of Klisa, the lack of urban and cultural content in outlying parts of the city and Klisa during the pandemic, are the scenes captured by Andrej Hložan, whose exhibition ‘Isolation, Klisa’ will be opened on 3 August from 7:20 p.m. in the Barka Cultural Station (Cultural Corner).

‘Although the starting points of the preparation of the exhibition were different: I did the first cycle of photographs with the aim to capture and present some of the key aspects of the city life in Klisa at the moment, and the second cycle emerged as the answer to the pandemic challenge and isolation, which completely changed the appearance of the city, it occurred that we can see a disproportionate functioning of different quarters in Novi Sad by connecting these photographs. The comparison pointed out that the suburb parts of the city are lagging behind significantly richer, more diverse city life contents that meet citizens’ needs. The period of isolation clearly equalized the paused course of life in the centre and everyday life in the suburbs’, explained Andrej Hložan.

The author adds that we should not be satisfied with the fact that cultural processes in outlying parts of the city, such as Klisa, are lagging behind, since there is a lot of people who would like to go to a gig, exhibition, theatre performance, as well as creative workers who can afford it and who would appreciate the opening of new points of cultural life, such as the Barka Cultural Station.

‘I think that artists are certainly the most expected to initiate a discussion about reviving the cultural life, as well as to offer potential actions and solutions. I believe that the Call for Novi Sad artists, as well as my exhibition, are the steps in the right direction that can make things better’, said Hložan and added:

‘Novi Sad is the city with rich cultural artistic tradition and developed cultural life. Announcing our city the European Capital of Culture is definitely a good chance to do something regarding the decentralisation of cultural life. The dynamics of city development contributes to the branching and spread of cultural processes, and opening of cultural stations and local initiative such as ‘Blok Fest’ are good examples. However, there is a lot of possibilities to work on it, and Klisa, which is the topic of my exhibition, is definitely the space that is lagging behind at the moment’.

The audience will have a chance to see the exhibition from 4 until 10 August in the Barka Cultural Station (Cultural Corner), in the period from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m., adhering to preventive measures.

The exhibition ‘Isolation, Klisa’ is one of the 22 projects that received funds within the ‘Artists. Now!’ public call of the ‘Novi Sad 2021 – European Capital of Culture’, aimed at strengthening local cultural scene, raising its capacities through a network of cultural stations, decentralisation of culture and audience development.

Partner in the project ‘Artists. Now!’ is the Merkator S company.

Photo Credit: V. Veličković, Andrej Hložan