We are pleased to invite you to the exhibition ”El Shatt refugee and the Wall of the Mediterranean” award-winning Croatian painter and comic artist Helena Klakočar,known for their autobiographical, social, and political observations.
Exhibition ”El Shatt, Refuge and the Mediterranean Wall” Helene Klakocar opens on Friday, April 28th at 7:00 PM in the Loggia exhibition space, and it can be viewed until 05/15/2023. The exhibition curator is Ivan Marušić. Admission is free.
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with HULU and the Centre for Culture and Lifelong Learning Zlatna vrata.
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”The graphic novels El Shatt / fragments, The Wall Mediterranean, and Restless Sea 1 and 2 all deal with the theme of displacement. Why do I keep returning to this theme? I wanted to convey the memories and feelings of those people: fear, uncertainty, disappointment, but also acceptance, the awakening of new strength and enthusiasm. Does it make sense to describe something as terrible as war and the suffering of ordinary people in it?
War is a large mechanism that kills innocent populations and turns happy people into unhappy ones and refugees.
Analyzing our inability to fight such a large, ubiquitous, timeless, and superior mechanism, perhaps we too can find a way out of our powerlessness, just as the participants of the desert exodus found the strength to adapt to desert life. That strength is equal to the strength refugees need to jump over an invisible wall in the middle of the Mediterranean in dilapidated ships. Remembering that inner strength instills hope that one day a time will come when it will be unnecessary to flee from the war machine, risking one's own life.”– from the author's statement, Helena Klakočar
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Helena Klakočar She graduated in graphic arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has exhibited solo and in group exhibitions both domestically and abroad. Her comics were published in “Polet,” “Vidici,” “Heroina,” “Mladina,” and others. In the multimedia group ZZOT, she and her collaborators combined comics and animation into installations. They performed at art festivals across Europe. Her greatest solo success was the comic diary "Restless Sea," which documented her catamaran journey to Greece. At the Angoulême Festival (2000), this book was awarded as the best foreign comic album. She also won a special award from France – Info radio. Helena Klakočar thus became one of the few female authors to have been awarded at this largest European comics festival. "Restless Sea 1 and 2" have been published in Serbia, Slovenia, and Italy. A total of her 5 books have been printed in Croatia. The latest, "El Shatt / fragments," was published by the artistic organization Javni prostor.
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The Hulu remote is supported by Ministry of Culture and Media, Kultura Nova Foundation, Split Stadium, Tourist boards of the city of Split and Split-Dalmatia County .
