Tajda Stiplovšek-Jug
based in Slovenia
Contact:
tajda.s.j@gmail.com
Artist statement:
In my artistic practice, I focus on exploring preservation as an active process of maintaining functionality. I am particularly interested in the preservation of nature and the question of how we can observe it and interact with it.
I base my projects on research in which I analyze the infrastructures and functioning of natural, industrial, and artistic systems, as well as the questions of what disrupts or establishes their operation. I speculatively transpose the investigated patterns of functionality into other systems and experiment with how these can be disrupted or hybridized. In this practice, I focus primarily on transposing natural patterns into human-made systems, thereby discovering ways in which nature can intervene in human practices, rather than the other way around. As a result, my artistic projects often become semi-(non-artistic) functional, or rather, they represent a possible, speculative form of functionality. They enable nature’s preservation by situating its functioning within a new context.
Currently, I am focusing particularly on early forms of human life, or rather, forms that were historically more closely connected to and dependent on nature. In this context, I am interested in how contemporary human artifacts would be used if they were found in the same way as natural objects.
About my functionality research:
I research functionality mainly within three contexts in order to approach it from different perspectives. The fact that functions don’t actually exist, but are products of our minds, is specifically present in nature, where functionality can be understood through preservation of existence - ecosystems are sustained by plants, rocks, species and even the weather, each participating spontaneously in their own self-realisation. On the other hand, I approach technological and industrial systems as densely structured with functionality, since almost each human-made component, that can take an incredibly abstract form, has been created to perform a highly specific executive role. Then again, artistic function, which I strive to transform by implementing functions of natural self-preservation and direct use, associated with technological objects, I approach as being specific in its indirect, progressive and cultural manifestations.
To merge, shift and recontextualise functionalities between these contexts I rely on analysing damage and restoration, which I approach as phenomena that disrupt and re-establish functionality, connecting functionality with non-functionality. Within this framework functionality enters dialectic ground; the whole world can be understood as a system, whose parts are entangled with processes of damages and restorations, where what is functional and restorative to one system can simultaneously be dysfunctional and damaging to another.
Education:
2022: Obtained a Bachelor's degree at Academy of Fine Arts and design Ljubljana (Akademija za likovno umetnost in oblikovanje Ljubljana) Sculpture class
2021: Erasmus+ student mobility at Art University Linz (Kunstuniversität Linz) Sculpture and Transmedial Space class (5 months)
2022/2023: Erasmus+ student mobility at Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig) Space and Installation class (5 months)
2025: Culterim Independent Class in Berlin, Germany (5 months)
2022: Obtained a Master's degree at Academy of Fine Arts and design Ljubljana (Akademija za likovno umetnost in oblikovanje Ljubljana) Sculpture class
Exhibitions:
2022: Group exhibition »Melting« at Alkatraz gallery, Ljubljana
2021: Group exhibition »Primavera« in GT22 gallery in the context of DLUM (Društvo likovnih umetnikov Maribor), Maribor
2023: participation at the Lightening Guerilla Festival with a group project by students of Sculptural department of Academy of Fine art and Design Ljubljana, Ljubljana
2024: Solo exhibition »The Messenger« at Tkalka gallery, Maribor
2024: Solo exhibition »Treida« at P74 gallery, Ljubljana
2025: Medditerranea Young Artist Biennale (»Borderless«), Nova Gorica / Gorizia
2025: Group exhibition »Wit Power. Climate protection instead of fake news« at Global Group 3000 Gallery, Berlin
2025: Group exhibition »Premiera 2025« at Center of Contemporary Art Celje
2025: Solo exhibition »Refrigerator as exhibition space« at Tkalka Gallery, Maribor
2026: Group exhibition »Who has it« in the Layer house, Kranj
2026: OHO Group award nominee's exhibition at P74 gallery, Ljubljana
Scholarships and awards:
2025: Scholarship for specialised professions abroad (Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia)
2026: Nomination for the OHO Group Award