News

Participants: Karolina Babič, Blaž Kosovel
Moderator: Jadranka Vesel
Organization: Vesna Bukovec, Ana Čigon.
Production: Piran Coastal Galleries, Publisher / *cf.

The public conversation will take place as part of the accompanying program of the exhibition by Vesna Bukovec and Ana Čigon Work in Progress. Deceptive Working Time at the Meduza Gallery in Koper. The exhibition is part of a multi-year artistic-curatorial research project that critically addresses precarious work and contemporary forms of neoliberal exploitation of people, nature, and the planet. At the same time, it seeks alternative ways of organizing society that do not succumb to the despair that nothing can be changed. The exhibition is based on the reflections of several interlocutors and three books: Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber, The Restoration of Capitalism: The Repatriarchalization of Society by Lilijana Burcar, and the anthology Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era.

The authors of the exhibition have invited social economy ambassador and activist Jadranka Vesel (Research Institute for Social Economy RISE) to moderate the discussion. She is also one of the collaborators of the Work in Progress project and one of the interlocutors in the video at the current exhibition. She will be conversing with social and solidarity economy researcher Dr. Karolina Babič, employed at the Faculty of Education of the University of Primorska, and Dr. Blaž Kosovel, editor of the journal Razpotja and author of the foreword to the Slovenian edition of David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs (*Publisher /cf.).

Jadranka Vesel has titled this conversation Deceptive Working Time, Deceptive Humanity … and, in addition to the female and male interlocutors, invites the engaged public to the discussion: “At the 2022 exhibition, we dedicated a roundtable to work and community. Today, we should dedicate it to humanity. If at that time we talked about work and its precarious forms bordering on slavery, today we are receiving confirmation that people are superfluous. All social safety nets are being reduced so that funds can be allocated for militarization. Even genocide is becoming profitable. Everything and more must be squeezed out of everyone, so that profits can grow—even if that means killing, destroying, humiliating, exploiting people and natural resources to a degree that threatens our existence. It is time to raise our heads, to stand up for every person, for everything that surrounds us, for the protection of the planet we call Earth. Join us—organizing will be easier if we start with a conversation. Let art mark the beginnings of new shared paths!"

More about the event: https://www.obalne-galerije.si/en/deceptive-working-time-deceptive-humanity-conversation/

Animation Catlands will be shown in the competition programme of Vukovar Film Festival in Croatia.

More about the festival: https://www.vukovarfilmfestival.com/vff19/hr/program/film/macak-na-vratima

The short experimental film Phoney Sights is comming to the national TV program. Kindly invited to watch it on TV SLO 1 on 18 Aug at 9.45 pm and on 22 Aug at 1.50 pm.

Animation Catlands will be shown in the competition programme of Vrboska Film Festival on the island of Hvar,Croatia.

More about the festival: https://www.vrboskafilmfestival.com/

In June the animation Catlands will be shown in the competition programme On human interactions at the wonderful IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival in Palace of Culture Pernik, Bulgaria.

More about the festival: https://www.inthepalace.com/en/movies/m/catlands

A critical view of work and contemporary forms of exploitation of workers, such as extended working hours, non-standard and insecure forms of work, curtailing workers’ rights, hyper-production, and mindless demands for constant economic growth, the aim of which is not to improve the living standards of the most vulnerable, but to accumulate wealth in the hands of the wealthiest individuals, increasingly frequent occurrences of burnout resulting from the unlivable demands of neoliberalism, environmental pollution, etc. are themes and problems of today’s society in its broadest sense and scope. The work in progress with a decentralized exhibition approach represents a multi-year artistic-curatorial research created by visual artists Vesna Bukovec and Ana Čigon in collaboration with curator Tia Čiček.

More about the exhibition: https://www.obalne-galerije.si/en/vesna-bukovec-in-ana-cigon-work-in-progress-deceptive-working-time/

For the World Refugee Day Festival of Migrant Film and Slovene Philanthropy will be holding an event entitled Between the Border and Home / Med mejo in domom. During the event the animation Catlands will be shown several times during the day and a round table will be held with the following guests: Ana Čigon, director of the film Catlands, Iza Thaler, representative of UNHCR, Urša Regvar from the PIC organization, and Ognjen Radivojević from the Slovenian Philanthropy. The round table will be moderated by Rok Derenčin.

More about the festival: https://www.filantropija.org/2025/06/11/med-mejo-in-domom-dogodek-ob-svetovnem-dnevu-beguncev/

Films in Arabic, English and German (with English subtitles).
Discussion in Slovenian or English.
Accessible for people with reduced mobility.

Join us for a screening of eight short films selected by Queer Cinema for Palestine. After the screening, we will discuss the role of art in resistance and the struggle for liberation with artist Ana Čigon.

More about the event: Queer Cinema for Palestine. No Pride in Genocide

Films by: Lea Vučko, Damir Grbanović, Rok Predin, Ana Čigon, Milanka Fabjančič, Darko Štante, Lučka Kenda, Anja Resman, Zarja Menart

The Cinema Slovenia project is organized by Filmoteka and the Association of Slovenian Filmmakers' Societies with the support of AGRFT, the Slovenian Film Archive and the Slovenian Film Centre. The screening will be followed by a discussion. The animation TCatlands will be shown as part of the short film programe at the Slovenian Cinematheque at 7 pm.

More about the event: https://kinoteka.si/projekcija/kino-slovenija-kratki/

Films: The Tower 1, Andraž Žigart, Slovenia, 2025, 4’30’’; Inventory, Ivan Marković, Serbia, 2025, 21’; Blooming, Lara Šifrer, Slovenia, 2025, 25’17”; Leptir / Butterfly, Sunčana Brkulj, Croatia, Denmark, 2024, 8’07”; Cuando todo arde / When Everything Burns, Maria Belen Poncio, Argentina, USA, 2024, 15’; Starvation, Aleksandra Stosić, Slovenia, 2024, 12’; Catlands, Ana Čigon, Slovenia, 2024, 9’44’’; Gerhard, Ulu Braun, Germany, 2025, 10’15”

The subjects in Sunday’s programme are not people, but spaces, plants, towers, nature and animals. Its main question is how to shift the narrative away from an anthropocentric perspective to listen to the messages of the nonhuman world. Through the dynamic presentation of its features, the film The Tower 1 creates the impression that the tower has a character of its own. In Inventory, we follow the slow transformation of the once iconic Sava Centre, which, newly privatised, is losing its signature identity in an ongoing transformation. With an unexpected focus on a houseplant, Blooming shows scenes from the life of an unknown girl. Butterfly playfully raises questions about how the environment can affect a community and vice versa, while When Everything Burns and Catlands continue and develop this idea towards a potential dystopia that increasingly overlaps with the present reality. In Starvation, the dystopia continues on a grotesque and dark note, with the narration delivered in the language of social networks. The programme closes with Gerhard, which presents the phenomenon of social obsession with the cult of the famous artist through the cynical use of artificial intelligence.

More about the exvent: https://kinootok.org/en/event/video-on-the-beach-v/

16 May 2025, at 7 pm, Official opening of the exhibition with Ana Čigon; at 8.15 pm Outdoor screening of the animated film Catlands
5 Jun 2025 at 6 pm, additional screening of Catlands animation
20 Jun 2025 at 6 pm, additional screening of Catlands animation

The exhibition Catlands Politics, which will run at the Customs House from 16 May 2025 to 21 June 2025, reveals the harsh reality of Europe's exclusive politics through the humorous cat-like symbolism of national flags, state institutions and signage. Filmmaker and visual artist Ana Čigon weaves elements of her latest animation, Catlands, and video interviews in which she discusses refugee policy with female experts.

The spatial installation in the Carinarnica is framed by a panel image of the European Commission building, which offers the opportunity to watch animation inserts and interviews with Aigul Haikimova, a member of the Infokolpa initiative, and Mirjam Milharčič Hladnik, a sociologist and scientific advisor at the Institute for Slovenian Emigration and Migration of the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

More about the exhibition: https://www.go2025.eu/en/whats-up/events/ana-cigon-catlands-politics

Are TV-shows and newspaper articles causing upset stomach? Is the Internet even worse? Fem TV: a bouquet of feminists for efficient calming of media reflux.

Kindly invited to the burlesque-cabaret show Fem TV, which returns to Cerkno after six years. In its current, seventh version, it parodies television shows and news programs and sharply criticizes current topics related to gender, sexuality, and the intersections between various forms of discrimination.

The Fem TV collective consists of diverse, changing individuals who create in a non-hierarchical feminist and queer spirit. They have been politicizing ignored topics with humor since 2012.

The collective includes Eva Jus, Danijela Zajc, Pia S. Skušek, Ana Grobler, Ana Čigon, Vasja Progar, Jaka Andrej Vojevec, Slobodan Malić, Tadeja Pirih, Bernarda Kristan, Avalon, Lucija Zajc and Hay.

More about the eevent: https://cmakcerkno.net/burleskno-kabaretna-predstava-fem-tv-7-0/

Review of the animated film Catlands by Ana Čigon

Catlands is a short animated film by director Ana Čigon, which premiered last year at the 34th Animafest in Zagreb. Last December, it was included in the program of the 21st Animateka, where we also watched it. It is a sharp satire that reflects a sharp commentary on European border policy through the microcosm of three feline neighbors. /.../

Review available only in Slovene: https://radiostudent.si/kultura/kinobar/macje-meje-in-pasji-zakoni

Open from 2 pm to 6 pm, Mon - Fri
4 Apr 2025 at 6 pm guided tour of the exhibition with the artists; at 7 pm, oppening
16 Apr 2025, at 5 pm, discussion with the artists and the curatorial team
17 Apr 2025, at 6 pm, guided tour of the exhibition with the artists \

The second exhibition of the International Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns, taking place in April and organised in collaboration with the Association for the Promotion of Women in Culture – City of Women, features two of the key artists who have been working independently and together in many fields of art in Slovenia for more than two decades. Social criticism, more specifically, feminist art, is an important foundation of Vesna Bukovec's and Ana Čigon's artistic practice.

More about the exhibition: https://galerijalkatraz.org/?p=20974

The animation Catlands will be screened in the competition programme of ClujShorts International Short Film Festival in Romania.

More about the event: https://clujshorts.ro/cluj-shorts-2025-official-selection/