Marjetica Potrc, "The Ashaninkas, Along with Their Friends in Tirana and New Babylon," Contemplate the Power of Pattern, 2009; wall drawing; 4.82 x 3.55m
Marjetica Potrc
Slovenia
Visual
Artist in Residence, 2019
↗ www.potrc.org
Artist Statement
I am an artist and an educator. My artwork and projects put an emphasis on individual empowerment and strategies for the future. My multidisciplinary practice–which includes drawings, architectural case studies, and public art projects— merges art, architecture, ecology, and anthropology. I have been learning from and working with local communities in Soweto, South Africa; Bogota, Colombia; and the state of Acre in Brazil, among others. Can 21st-century cities learn from the forest communities of Acre? I think so.
Apart from exhibiting my art work and being busy with public art projects, I was from 2011 to 2018 engaged in a class of social practice Design for the Living World at the HFBK University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. The class worked on long-term projects in local communities across the world, aiming to create schoolrooms for testing methods of self-organizing and solidarity.
While at Headlands
While at Headlands, I will work on series of drawings—on drawing narratives and diagrammatic drawings, a practice I have developed to bridge art, architecture, and social practice. Engagement with the world we live in is a continuous passion in my practice. During my time at Headlands, I will draw stories about the places I have visited as part of my research and on-site projects over the past few years. Such projects gave me an opportunity to learn from the communities who live there. They, in fact, are the real subject of my drawings, which tell of their strengths, their hopes, and their strategies for living.
