You are warmly invited to the opening of the exhibition project Žarka and the Goodness of the World by Katja Smerdu, Marjeta Medved, and Nataša Špiranec, on Friday, January 16, at 7:00 PM at ART KUHA / ART ODEON Gallery, Ulica Prekomorskih brigad 4, Izola.

The exhibition is a continuation of an artistic project presented in 2024 at the Veseli vrt Gallery of the Ljubljana Association of Visual Artists (DLUL) under the title On the Threshold of Žarka’s Kitchen – Dawns of Transformation.

DESCRIPTION:

Žarka and the Goodness of the World is a performative, multi-layered symbolic and richly sensorial spatial installation that enters, in a distinctive and exploratory manner, the realm of sensibility and the aesthetics of invisible life forces. In certain corners, one can almost sense the fragrance of spirituality and esotericism, yet in the same moment the work grounds itself in contemplation of the organic nature of life and the possibilities of transformation and reanimation of phenomenal forms.

The spatial installation, marked by femininity, emotionality, and sensuality, symbolic connotations, and the embrace of dichotomies, is inspired by what lies in the background and remains unseen, yet is profoundly active and decisive. The authors emphasize that their collaborative work stages the oppositions of the world, the tense transformations that ignite and whirl life processes:
“The transformations of opposites, as a play of Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and the mysterious quintessence of every being, occur constantly, and each time we perceive them in our own way. They open questions, sometimes offering answers in themselves, but above all they are the driving force of life.”

The shared motivation of the exhibition project is Žarka, an emerging charismatic mythological presence that embodies light and goodness. The artists recognize her in a randomly found trunk of a felled yew tree, discarded and abandoned by the roadside, to which academic sculptors Katja Smerdu and Marjeta Medved breathe renewed life. Once-living matter, damaged by harsh and insensitive human hands and deprived of life, is transformed into a totem of museum or gallery value that expresses the light of the world and the goodness of life by reawakening the bond between materiality and vitality.

A deeper opposition addressed by the artists is the rebellious stance against a world that, without a trace of empathy or gratitude, cuts down the shoots of pure metaphysical goodness—the possibility of life to exist for its own sake. Their feminist formation unites in depicting sensitivity, empathy, and emotional positioning toward marginal worlds, toward those whose rights are trampled and whose roots are severed. Ultimately, their bodies are neither rewarded nor commemorated, but merely discarded and forgotten. The world remains shrouded in patriarchy, whose hand is insensitive, whose posture is manipulatively rational, and whose victims are countless.

The installation is a precious tribute to sensibility and life, to a gentle and benevolent creative energy that inspires life and turns toward it with gratitude. The sculpture of Žarka, drawn from wood by Marjetka Medved and clothed in metal by Katja Smerdu, functions as an altar to goodness—that metaphysical presence we often fail to perceive because it is not exposed or dazzling, but concealed beneath a multitude of empty niceties and false kindnesses, poor imitations of what true goodness is. Goodness is an energy that arises from itself, incorruptible and enduring, unlike the phenomena of the consumerist world, where everything has an expiration date and instructions for use.

The sculpture of Žarka comes alive before us through the artists’ handmade creative practices, textiles, watercolors, and also through scents created by botanist Nataša Špiranec. Each exhibited artifact expresses one element of life. The visual aspect of creative manuality is only part of the manifestation; behind it lies much more. We access this through symbolism—both familiar and newly emerging here and now—creating and weaving new sign languages, new poetics of space, creation, and compassion. In material lying abandoned by the roadside, one can find the vitality and goodness that shaped and gave birth to it.

Žarka and the Goodness of the World weaves together opposing dimensions of the world, visibility and matter with an invisible atmosphere co-created by scents and energies. These expand the space, disrupt the apparent solidity of existing matter, and draw us into a realm of environmental, emotional, and energetic installation through which the artists, with gentle and subtle activism, communicate the kind of world they wish to help shape.

The exhibition will be on view until April 3, 2026.