Tajda Stiplovšek-Jug
based in Slovenia
Contact:
tajda.s.j@gmail.com
Artist statement:
The general interest of my artistic practice is the expansion of artistic function, which I approach in two directions; the first focuses on expanding the functions of artistic practice, and the second on expanding the function of the artwork itself. This research evolves through a transdisciplinary approach in which materials, media and processes interact.
This interest begins with theoretical questions about functionality. 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.
On the one hand I research this relationship between natural and industrial context and on the other between technological and artistic ones. The first focuses on how nature and industrial damage one another and how nature might speculatively process the industrial, instead of the opposite. The second focuses on how technology is perceived as functional, because it has a direct use, and art is perceived as dysfunctional, as its use is indirect. From these relationships emerge the two directions I seek to expand the artistic function: in first I investigate how industrial can be processed through analogies with natural processes and pre-industrial techniques, and the second I investigate how can an artwork acquire direct use while remaining an artwork.
My research into expanding the function of artistic practice, revolves around speculative practices, grounded in analogies with natural phenomena, with materials, such as terrestrial rocks, organisms such as animals, processes such as fossilization, practices such as agriculture. The main purpose of these analogies is to use natural and pre-modern processes to research ways in which they can intervene in the industrial and technological materials and tools, such as construction materials, machines, computers, robots and digital environments. Within this artistic practice and research damage and restoration became my central methods for translating this theoretical background into practical and material processes and they appear in almost every project. They develop through speculative practices of mechanical repair activity, rebuilding (Sanierung), fossilization and survival.
The other direction of expanding artistic function is directed towards expanding the function of the artwork itself.
The goal of this research and practice is to challenge conventional functions of artworks; those of objects with ritualistic value, objects providing aesthetic experience and even contemporary functions such as being objects made to be exhibited. I will pursue this by researching exhibition as a system and developing methods through which artworks become supportive objects of the exhibition and its content.
Within this process I’m interested in moving beyond the creation of artworks as self-contained projects, focusing on creating solidary artworks - designing them as tools to exhibit, observe, research, or otherwise support other artworks.
In this direction of expanding the artistic function, the method differs from the other direction of my research, but still follows the methods of shifting functions between natural, technological and artistic contexts. It also connects the questions of systems, coexistence and preservation, as artworks do not merely preserve their own existence but participate and enable the existence of others. Besides my interest in what happens when functions of elements are removed from one system and introduced into another, I’m similarly curious what material knowledge, uses and relationships emerge through these shifts.
Education:
2022: Graduated 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)
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