GTBT Start Introduction Itinary Outro
The German/Croatian artist James Skunca presented a captivating narrative. His installation featured twelve enlargements of handwriting about his experience in the train and on Olkhon, and two spatial interventions. The written narrative was about basic experiences: there were notes about being in the train, observations of people interacting and making art, and diary-like confessions like the wish to be on his own. The style of the writing was direct, plastic, susceptible to people and behaviour, and featured an attentiveness to details. Most impressive part of the narrative was a longer story of a daytrip at Olkhon when the artist went out on a rented bicycle, had a flat tire, got lost, survived what seems to have been a near-death experience, and was rescued by a Russian who tried to repair his bike and offered him cigarettes.
The installation did justice to two of the more intense experiences. In the project room places had been demarcated that made these experiences come alive again. A place called 'Intimate Space' had been formed by rearranging the mobile walls of the project room into a separate small room next to the door entrance. In the large room itself a circular spot called 'Place to Meditate upon One's own Death' urged the viewers to consider, that the day that is the last one will one day come.
