Molat Colony
The Molat Colony was conceived as a possible artist residency on a small, sparsely populated island in the Adriatic Sea.
The key difference from a classical artist residency would be that the Molat Colony would be intended as a place of rest, with the explicit requirement not to talk about art, not to work, plan, realise or otherwise practise artistic production.
The Molat Colony as a work of art has never been realised, as it contains an essential paradox. It is difficult to speak about non-work without working, and even more difficult to produce and realise a project about non-work without working. What is possible, however, is a serious reflection on why we work the way we do and why it is so difficult to allow ourselves not to work.
Reflections on the meaning of non-work raise many questions: how time dedicated to not working enabled the development of a strong tourism industry that sustains many people while simultaneously causing severe pollution; when work became so important that it entered every pore of the social system as a core value; and whether it was always so. Even more compelling is the assumption that excessive work and hyperproduction as the basis of progress have led us into the ecological crisis we face today. We are a society that demands constant economic growth, which a planet with finite capacities cannot sustain. Thus, reflecting on non-work is also a reflection on ecology.
Nada Žgank
The Molat Colony was conceived as a possible artist residency on a small, sparsely populated island in the Adriatic Sea.
The key difference from a classical artist residency would be that the Molat Colony would be intended as a place of rest, with the explicit requirement not to talk about art, not to work, plan, realise or otherwise practise artistic production.
The Molat Colony as a work of art has never been realised, as it contains an essential paradox. It is difficult to speak about non-work without working, and even more difficult to produce and realise a project about non-work without working. What is possible, however, is a serious reflection on why we work the way we do and why it is so difficult to allow ourselves not to work.
Reflections on the meaning of non-work raise many questions: how time dedicated to not working enabled the development of a strong tourism industry that sustains many people while simultaneously causing severe pollution; when work became so important that it entered every pore of the social system as a core value; and whether it was always so. Even more compelling is the assumption that excessive work and hyperproduction as the basis of progress have led us into the ecological crisis we face today. We are a society that demands constant economic growth, which a planet with finite capacities cannot sustain. Thus, reflecting on non-work is also a reflection on ecology.
Matej Tomažin
An artist and producer. She works in the areas of new media, sound and performance arts. In recent years, she has been focusing her artistic expressions on the preparations of sound-walk performances, co-authored by Brane Zorman, which, by means of transmission tools and sound pictures, through walking and listening establish space anew and reflect social reality.
A composer, sound and radio artist. His work explores the possibilities of processing, presenting, perceiving, understanding, positioning and reinterpreting sound, space and ecology. By employing analogue and digital technologies and techniques, his work traverses the fields of music, multimedia, and visual space, using both sophisticated and simple tools, strategies, methods, and interactive interpretation models, soundscapes, evolving electronic and acoustic sound sculptures.
Video concept and production: Matej Tomažin, Alja Lobnik, Irena Pivka, Brane Zorman
Screenplay: Irena Pivka
Filming and editing: Matej Tomažin
Sound design: Brane Zorman
Translation: Jana Renée Wilcoxen
Production: Maska Ljubljana, Cona, 2023