Thorned Garden was a temporary spacial installation through which I turned a small shop into a serene garden by using simple materials such as paper and textile. I like exploring the transformation of spaces into ceremonious avenues, especially through use of flexible media that softens the rough edges of rigid architecture. I further more used the paper and fabric surface for block printing the shapes of roses and thorns giving the space the atmosphere of several contradicting qualities – fragility, hostility, intimacy and softness. The symbolic hearth in the middle of the space grounded the somewhat floaty installation and anchored the ritualistic potential of this newly created territory.

The installation was created within a small souvenir shop in the old city centre of Split in the framework of the Voids2020 project conducted by Culture Hub Croatia.

(…) several spaces in the centre of Split have become open studios for eight local and regional artists. These spaces, which are closed during the winter, are usually open just for the season as souvenir shops. Invited resident artists exchanged during the three weeks of the project and during their stay opened the doors of their temporary studios to the local community who are invited to actively participate in artist talks, performances and / or workshops, or just to visit the studios and get introduced to their work and contemporary art production of the region.
The result of artistic residency within the space was not previously defined. The artists were free to focus on the process itself and thus not only on the spatial but also on the temporal aspect of the void. Artists were able to propose short-term or long-term interventions or communication with the audience. In addition, for some of them the residency was only a part of the process of producing current or future work or just the beginning of a new artistic research.

Portrait photos by Nikola Radovani.
Photos of the installation by yours truly.