The last two weeks the pace of our stay in Kranj started to accelerate. Looking towards Šmarjetna gora from the Layer House, a conversation was going on everyday in my head about personal principles and the collective will to action. Naturally, in this process, I am at once speaker, listener and judge.
The week before production and the pop-up show we met with Darči from SubArt TrainStation. The Train Station was squatted in 2011, as part of the legacy of a group of people who started Bazen, a space which is now a shopping area. I'm still wondering what exactly has ignited this squatting culture in Slovenia, since this is not a common practice in Kosovo. SubArt runs a yearly program of up to 80 concerts and 80 other activities (such as workshops on photography, music production), bringing with it a bunch of internationally known artists and bands. Darči offered us to use the recording studio if we wish, and I jumped into this opportunity in the week ahead.
We also met Maruša, a collage artist and organizer of the international festival on contemporary collage in Kranj. Her work feels very intuitive and organic, though it's visible she's been honing her practice for many years. We talked with her about her artistic process and how by now people are familiar with what she does and give to her different types of materials for her to bring new life out of in her collages. She told us different stories, for example of how someone gifted her a huge collection of their grandmother's colorful napkins, something which used to be a practice to collect even in Kosovo in my younger days. In her studio were also antique kitchenware she finds and repurposes. Maruša managed to successfully organize the international collage art festival for five years now, and I think this pursuit to instead bring together international guests from a creative field in a place where there's not particularly many artists in that niche field is something to take with.
The week went on with informal hangouts with many other creatives around and about - singers, rappers and performers. I enjoyed joining one of the weekly practices at Qulenium where we engaged in mindful movement, improvisational and contemporary dance, and learning about the place and their school. I saw theatre plays and live audiovisual acts. I also joined a workshop with Kudljud on theatrical practices. I got to see and learn about the program at Fragmenti, a bookshop and event venue in Kranj, where they hold monthly jam sessions.
By this time, I decided to gather all my notes, reflections, and voice recordings and work on an audio installation for our showcase on 1st of April at Layer House. Being able to use the recording studio at SubArt was very fortunate. In an intensive five- day period I gathered field recordings and personal voice notes, recorded with Klara and the Albanian kids from the embroidery workshop at the studio and had some musical experiments with Nils. The intention was to produce a sound piece that transmutes and materializes in audio form the impressions and experiences from Slovenia while somehow channeling also those I bring from home. The process was one of self-discovery, delving into the expressive characteristics of voice and music, as well as linking poetic, philosophical and political reflections together into an ambient sound voyage which also reuses and distorts folk and pop songs from the region.
