The exhibition Rhymes of the White Crow: the Epilogue was shown at Salon Galić in Split and Prsten Gallery in Zagreb. It was my second, and final exploration of transforming film medium into gallery space. That way the film gained an expanded life of existing in both the ethereal medium of cinema as well as the concrete form within gallery space.

For Salon Galić, the first of two exhibitions, the curator Jasmina Šarić wrote:

An epilogue means the final word in a work. In literary works, in the epilogue, the author addresses the reader directly, but it can also be written from the perspective of the character, who then confesses completely freely and honestly. Sometimes epilogues show scenes closely related to the action that took place or happened after the one in the work, which gives the final conclusion or confirmation of the idea of ​​the work. The epilogue can represent the announcement of the continuation of the work, and it can also be presented as the final consequence of an action or event.

The epilogue usually talks about what follows from what was previously presented, but it can also represent the last, final event in a series of events that comes as a consequence, the logical conclusion of those that preceded it, a kind of outcome. From another point of view, the epilogue can also refer to  additional notes that do not belong to the main events narrated in the work, but which can contribute to its understanding.

In ancient times, epilogues were performed after a tragedy or a drama, with the aim of pacifying the (violent) impressions that the piece had aroused , thus offering a kind of rest to the imagination and feelings.

Rhymes of the White Crow is an experimental animated film, with which Andrea Resner graduated from the Art Academy in Split in 2019. Through the nine acts of this cinematic poem, we follow the inner world of the main character, the one who is always in the making, who needs to fall apart in order to be created again. Expanding the medium of film and emerging from it with this multimedia exhibition, Andrea breaks down the story into elements that include drawings and spatial installations.

The work of art is never finished, only abandoned. What happens when an artist sticks to one work? When he doesn't even try to finish it? Working with Andrea, I became convinced of how simple and complex the artistic process can be at the same time: constantly building up, adding new elements, restructuring the previous ones, returning to the beginning and rounding off the story - a story that is not only not linear (like the others realities are not), but quite complex and layered. And Andrea deals with complexity by deconstructing, sifting, reshaping and reassembling it – her work is intuitive, self-healing and deeply personal.

In this case, the initial idea is not exclusively personal, but can be identified with collective traumas - especially those experienced by women, traumas of growing up, maturing, being wounded, deep feelings that could not or should not come to the surface. Insisting on the concept of femininity, it points us to worlds beyond ours, where male and female principles intertwine, exchange and complement each other. Numerous symbols appear on this artistic journey, which are interesting to consider for a moment from an iconological point of view.

For example, the horse symbolizes courage, freedom, independence, but also endurance, fertility and sexual maturity. It represents the maternal archetype, but it is also often linked to dark human urges. It can represent impulsiveness, the instincts that motivate us and the suddenness of desire. Trees, on the other hand, represent life and growth - progress, and can often be associated with the paternal archetype, ancestors and roots. The dress as the leitmotif of the story represents protection, passion, purity, hidden desires and secrets, while the white crow from the title is a frequent symbol of outsiders. The castle as the central focus of the exhibition symbolizes a physical and spiritual refuge, and since it often hides an unattainable treasure or a person who has been deprived of freedom, it also represents the acquisition of esoteric knowledge or spiritual achievement. The castle is also an androgynous symbol - at the same time it is a place to live (feminine principle) and a fortress (masculine principle), so the castle as a symbol represents the union of male and female aspects. The symbols here are not in the service of adding meaning - they only provide some of the possible ways of reading this story, which does not have a strictly defined order. Even in the visual sense, it is possible to combine different elements and intertwine them, while the unclear demarcation between conscious and unconscious processes contributes to the fluidity of the genre - film becomes poetry, and vice versa.

Thinking about the very idea of ​​the exhibition and the work as a process, I ask myself: What comes after the work? If a work of art is seen as a process, does it have an end? In particular, what might this mean for the medium of film? Ultimately, what does this mean for the artist's practice – leaving the work open, returning to it again and again? Andrea brings a new understanding of post-production, i.e. the way in which it can take place, which includes dreams, sketches, connection in movement, completely without or with a minimum of narrative, poetry, reflection on what has been done, assembling everything again. Perhaps precisely in this kind of processuality lies the hidden methodology of resistance to today's way of working, in which excessive production, the search for innovation and superficial dealing with things around us and in us have a limiting effect.

Creating art—giving form to the images that arise in our minds, our dreams, and our daily lives—can be a form of spiritual practice through which self-knowledge can mature (Allen, Pat. (1995) Art is a Way of Knowing). In this context, the transformative and healing power of art in Andrea's work is unusual. I would venture to say that it is a process of personal transformation, questioning and healing through artistic expression. Just like the main heroine - who after everything returns to her body again, a body that is the same - but different.

And for the final exhibition in Prsten Gallery Jasmina Šarić wrote:

MYTH AND IDENTITY

[All my "I's" merged into one, and then I am complete. I come out of the story different, and I entered it the same.]

Legacy Russell, paraphrasing the famous statement of Simone de Beauvoir, claims that we are not born, but rather become a body. The conditions for its formation are close to those for the de/re/construction of identity, they are multiple and complex. Russell here also refers to Walt Whitman who writes: "I am large, I contain multitudes", in which Russell sees the practice of our own right to be abstract, displaced, unclear - while demanding the right to complexity, to range, within and beyond the proverbial margins .

To embody means to materialize something completely abstract. Accordingly, we use the body to give form to abstraction, to identify a connected whole. Conversely, to dematerialize means to abstract again – the body and its limitations, in order to make room for other realities. We need to celebrate transformation, becoming, and that means a cosmic journey towards new, more comprehensive canons and, therefore, towards ourselves.

So the stories are here, but are we? (Martin Shaw)

[The story finds its way. It will untangle itself and return to the beginning. Stories have always been there, even before us. Later they turned into myths and legends. Later they became flat and anthropocentric.]

I don't think we have the stories, the stories have us. (Martin Shaw)

PROCESS

[I’m healing. Growing. The story is there, it lives on, somewhere else. It's never over. It is created in drawing, wax, paper. Artwork is like the main character. With each moonlight, it changes and communicates something else.]

END

Endings to be useful must be inconclusive. (Samuel R. Delany)

In the end, I feel that I could write hundreds of texts, just as Andrea could do hundreds of exhibitions, and that each epilogue would look and sound different. With the epilogue, the author says goodbye to his work, which is not easy at all. It's not even final. I feel that I could reach more layers, reach hundreds of new interpretations, while not providing the visitor with ready-made material, but only inspiring him to go on his own way of experiencing the work. After all, it is important to experience, not to interpret. Artwork is like the main character. With each moonlight, it transforms and communicates something else. And at the same time it is created again and again.

We didn't dream our carefully individuated thoughts – We. Got. Dreamt. (Martin Shaw)

Photos of exhibition at Salon Galić by Žaklina Antonijević.
Photos of exhibition at Prsten Gallery by Juraj Vuglač.