Trekking Guide

2020/21 – residency at Kunstpodium-T; Tilburg; NL

The process of befriending a certain environment is conditioned by all our past experiences. We all hold our own spatial archive which backtracks our intimate history. As we move through and within our environment, we form unique relationships, imprints, and associations which define the specific location. These landscapes can overlap and blend together anachronistically.

Trekking Guide maps the public space on multiple levels. Inspired by marked hiking trails in Slovenia, the path through Tilburg centre has been selected. As a public space intervention, Urša placed the marks and created another trail. She walked the misplaced trekking route for a period of three weeks. Through these repetitive gestures, she embarked on a process of mapping the route, imprinting it in her memory. The archiving was realized in the form of a drawing, creating a memory map, a personal territory. This process of translation reveals the subjective functions of spatial memory. Combined with the video imagery taken from her family archive, the two spatial experiences overlap and the path in Tilburg has become one of her many past landscapes.

[…] I am happy to be residing in a city I know nothing about. At least in the sense of spatial orientation, that is. Not to mention, it is fun to even embark on a project which requires a certain feel for orientation. I truly am a person who will get lost in a shopping mall. When I was younger, that was the reason why I never went shopping alone. Perhaps that is why I like the process of mapping – I am simply bad at it. My memory works in visual way: a dumpster without a wheel on the right; a crooked fence; a weird-ass graffiti above – I am on the right track! In any case, I do hate it when people change aisles around in the supermarket.

[notes from the residency period]