Group exhibition

at Villa Irena in Makarska, Croatia

May 18th – June18th, 2026

Exhibition organisers:
University of Zadar
Makarska City Museum
City of Makarska

Authors of the Exhibition and Curatorial Concept:
Silvia Bekavac
Antonela Čelan
Dora Štublin
Josip Karamatić

Exhibition Curators:
Nina Vidović
Cvita Plenča
Nera Colić
Lara Đuran
Barbara Gašpar
Gloria Vukoša

“Dialogues with the Landscape” is an exhibition grounded in reflections on the cultural landscape of the St. Peter peninsula
in Makarska as a space of continuous interaction between humans and the environment.
Extensive research has revealed
a complex archaeological stratigraphy which, through material remains, bears witness to the everyday lives of people in the past, the natural characteristics of the area, and the contemporary changes that continue to shape it. What all these layers share is a sustained and uninterrupted communication between humans and the peninsula. In this way, the genius loci of the city has been
formed, within which the interdependence between people and place has been dynamically shaped over centuries.
These continual oscillations between space and its inhabitants constitute one of the exhibition’s core conceptual intentions. The cultural landscape is approached not only through the material traces of the past, but also through contemporary interpretations, lived experience, memory, and affective forms of belonging. In this sense, the landscape emerges as a space constituted through overlapping layers of identity, community, conflict, transformation, continuity, and discontinuity.
The exhibition “Dialogues with the Landscape” brings together artworks that interpret the relationship between nature, heritage, and the environment in diverse ways. Through contemporary artistic expression, it opens a dialogue between past and present, between visible and hidden layers of space, as well as between individual artistic interpretations and the collective experience of place.
The works presented in the exhibition do not depict the landscape merely as a visual motif but instead approach it as a space of emotion, memory, identity, and social reflection.
The aim of the exhibition is to open a space for reflection on the importance of preserving shared space as a value that transcends contemporary trends and pressures of spatial transformation so that the landscape may remain marked by human presence, yet not irreversibly deconstructed in ways that would compromise the continuities yet to come.