The project I Try Not to Think of Dead Things and Plumbing takes as its starting point asbestos particles and the potential of their latent presence. Despite causing numerous incurable diseases and chronic conditions, asbestos fibres still frequently appear in everyday materials such as plumbing, roofing, and insulation.
The artist links the fact that the effects of contact with asbestos microparticles remain invisible for long periods—with symptoms appearing only 20 to 40 years later—to the signs and processes of decay in analogue photographic materials. Just as the elusive human contact with asbestos particles implants the potential for disease within the body, every film material carries within it the potential for gradual degradation, recognisable by a silvery oxidation on the surface of the film or paper, known as silver mirroring. In both processes, it is impossible to determine when the decay will manifest on the surface, when it will become perceptible and tangible, when it began, if it will ever fully unfold, or what exactly caused it. The artist thus addresses the inability to predict the future or influence the course of the past, as well as the desire to be able to identify the forces that determine them in time.
Curator: Lucija Klauž
Free admission.
9. 6.–4. 7. 2026
Organisation: DobraVaga / Kino Šiška.
