Site of Impact / Mjesto udara
spatial audio/video – installation
Galerija Kortil, Strossmayerova street 1, Rijeka, Hrvatska
December 5th-28th, 2024.
Opening: December 5th, 2024
Spatial audio/video – installation:
video “The Threat is There” (2015, HD 1080p, color, 9min 22 sec, 5.1 surround sound),
video “Here and There”(2019, HD 1080p, color, 17min, stereo sound),
6 banners with texts (2024, print on tarpaulin, 290×135 cm)
AUTHOR OF THE EXHIBITION: Nadija Mustapić
TEXT FOR THE EXHIBITION: Anamarija Batista
GALLERY MANAGER: Ivana Lučić
EXHIBIT DESIGN: Marino Krstačić-Furić i Ana Tomić in collaboration with the author
Text by Anamarija Batista:
In her exhibition Site of Impact, artist Nadija Mustapić interweaves two of her previous works – The Threat is There (2015) and Here and There (2019) – thus creating a new, unified whole. Her idea is to shape this whole through a dramaturgical and scenographic interaction of textual and sound elements in the space. Extracting textual and audio fragments from the above-mentioned video works and weaving them into a new narrative is one of the artist’s primary methodological approaches for connecting the two pieces. Displayed as hanging vertical banners, the texts follow the spatial framework of the Kortil Gallery, simultaneously cutting through the space and delineating new boundaries within it. The banners guide the choreography of movement and the reading of the new whole, but above all, they create new spatial and conceptual relationships with the visual and auditory elements of the exhibition. Each banner represents a voice that, speaking in the first person, offers an interpretation of its perspective through a textual contribution: we encounter six voices each speaking to themselves and the exhibition visitors, either in masculine or feminine form. The texts explore the topics of freedom, change, personal feelings and attitudes, and disappearance of the sense of belonging. Within her poetic expression, the artist creates a dialectical framework for reflecting on space in the context of societal events and individual observations.
The space features eight sound sources. The sounds of a circling helicopter, wind, a foghorn, and distant bells blend with the sounds of rowing, a boat, water, and a voice. By arranging these sound sources throughout the space, the artist creates a new auditory matrix that connects the landscapes of the former military station at Marin Headlands1 with the sea horizon, symbolizing an in-between space – between here and there, between then and now. Both locations are enveloped in fog. Through its texture and dynamic movement, the fog creates another spatial dimension, marked by the actions of concealing and revealing events and their protagonists. Both in metaphorical and literal sense, the fog suggests the complexity of the theme of visibility. It highlights the issue of fragmented individual perspectives that obstruct the formation of cohesive structures and mutual understanding. Such a spatial paradigm requires an awareness of the necessity to connect fragmented parts and perspectives, which are conditioned by the position within the space itself. Foggy scenes appear in the visual compositions of the video works.
By titling the exhibition Site of Impact, the artist evokes the ambivalence that exists in interpreting the term ‘impact’. The intensity implied by this concept can be understood as a state of being immersed in a particular situation, but it can also signify a moment of deconstruction. The exhibition itself uses a lyrical and subtle approach to the idea of impact, deconstructing and constructing contrasting relationships: spaces of safety versus spaces of threat, visible spaces versus hidden horizons, places of depth versus shallow spaces, and military zones versus natural environments.
In these times of political and economic destabilization of societies and the crisis of democratic values, the contours of an ignoble past – for which we believed, at least partially, that it had been interpreted and reflected upon – resurface in our realities, seeking new roles and stages for their spectacles. The main purpose of today’s societal spectacle is to provoke emotions through the use of populist tools, and to create polarized relationships. In such moments, the site of impact becomes a site of conflict, rather than an in-between space that enables negotiation, understanding, and contact. The production of exclusivity relies on generating its own echo, endlessly repeating itself, refusing to allow the sounds of ‘other’ spaces to permeate it. Nadija Mustapić’s exhibition demonstrates that overlaps and connections are certainly possible, and reminds us that our efforts to join together fragmented parts – with an awareness that wholeness may never be entirely achievable, or even desirable – still have power and legitimacy to act in the present space and time.