Ana Pečar
Narrow Path – the Afterlife of Contemporary Civilisation, 2024
The project explores death and the afterlife, an age-old topic that has become almost taboo in modern society. However, a large part of the propaganda and marketing industry plays on this taboo subject with its many instructions and products designed to deliver eternal youth. Today, society would prefer to forget about death altogether. Using a poetic language that perhaps best expresses this theme, the project establishes an intimate and sacred relationship with death and illuminates the fears associated with transitions. It explores the myth of the opposition between eternity and finitude – the story of the Heathen Maiden and the Goldenhorn, which is centred on the death of the immortal Goldenhorn prophesied by the Heathen Maiden. The Venetian jeweller with his great wealth is indirectly responsible for its death, symbolising the supremacy of the material world over the spiritual and the ethical. This imbalance has also led to a respect for nature being transformed into a ruthless exploitation of nature. In front of the rock face on the northern side of Mount Prisojnik was once a place of ritual where food and gifts were brought as gestures of invocation and gratitude. The author of the text in the audio accompanying the video is Katarina Nagode, an expert in palliative care who runs Death Club in Kobarid. In the text, interpreted by Ana Pečar, she sheds light on ethical dilemmas at the end of life and myths related to dying.
Produced in the framework of the EMPACT project with support from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
video installation, 10 min, words: Katarina Nagode, music: Igor Bezget, faces: Darja Vrana, Gregor Piskernik, courtesy of the artist
Ana Pečar is an artist whose work is based on video images of intangible, subtle, and at the same time expressive scenes from nature. Using media such as intermedia installations, spatial interventions, and photography, she creates spaces of contemplation in which the impulses of the external dynamic world come to rest. She draws her inspiration from various sources, from long visually-driven scenes by Tarkovsky or Kurosawa to the richness of the autochthonous way of life. Her focus is the power of silence. She explores the heritage preserved through oral tradition in remote areas and the cycle that connects the elements, natural cycles, fauna, flora, and people. Her aim is to relativise the unconditional value system in which we find ourselves.
