Art laboratory, experiment, reaction and attitude of people towards nature – is a picture of the ambience of the ‘VIVARIUM’ exhibition by Adrienn Újházi and Nemanja Milenković, which will be officially opened in the cultural station Svilara on Monday, 20 July at 7 p.m. within the ‘Artists. Now!’ project.

‘VIVARIUM’ is a joint project of two painters, where it is clear how art provides new opportunities for the use of different materials and which also directly maintains the relationship of people to nature.

The subject of Nemanja Milenković’s artistic practice and research is very wide and can be approached from various aspects, which reopen new perspectives of viewing.
‘I have become acquainted with the different experiences of animals and the relationships we have with them through my work so far. From the basic violent attitude in order to survive, through traditional, mythological and religious presentations and uses, to activist ambitions to save animals due to the already actualised daily exploitation for the sake of various profitable ambitions,’ Milenković points out.

On another hand, Adrienn transforms plant-based organic elements through her technological research work.

‘I come up with new solutions by using different media in the form of bio-art and by growing a new material called skobi (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), which I cross with human DNA for hybridity of the work itself,’ says Adrienn Újházi, adding that collectivism is becoming a necessary form of survival for both the cultural and the widest social community.

The authors point out that ‘VIVARIUM’ offers different potentials and that is why it is important for the audience to see it. It shows the terms of another possibility, an alarm that the way we treat our environment is not productive, whether because of the possibility of using new alternative materials such as kombucha in relation to those of animal origin, or because of the awareness that objects we possess or consume they are acquired by violent treatment of a different species that has fundamental rights to life just like humans.

This exhibition is one of 22 projects that received funding in the ‘Artists. Now!’ public call of the ‘Novi Sad 2021 – European Capital of Culture’ Foundation, which aims to strengthen the Novi Sad cultural scene through a network of cultural stations, raising its capacities, decentralisation of culture and audience development. The authors of the exhibition say that every kind of system support is very important.

‘First of all, it gives us feedback on the content over which we have invested a certain thought and implementation process. Of course, financial support is important in order to accumulate the funds necessary to implement the ideas, and visibility is also important, since it would open new doors for productive communication and possible cooperation, but we would also point out that system support must be more progressive, up-to-date and accessible in order for the local scene to progress,’ Újházi and Milenković agree.

The exhibition is available to the public in the Svilara Cultural Station until 24 July, while the opening of the exhibition can be followed online on Monday, 20 July at 7 p.m. via the Svilara Facebook and Instagram page.

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

The exhibition is implemented in accordance with the preventive measures adopted due to the epidemiological situation – a maximum of 10 people will be able to stay in the Svilara Cultural Station, with respect to the prescribed distance and the obligatory mask on the face.

Foto: Kakuszi Elvira