Exhibition Material
SUBTITLE
In February 2026, project Sounding Spomenik initiated a dedicated series of ''Oral History'' Video Interviews: an ever growing body of structured and recorded conversations designed to document first-hand memories, experiences, interpretations, and perspectives connected to the Yugoslav era monuments of the revolution. The initiative forms an important extension of the project's broader interdisciplinary research into the memorial landscapes of the former Yugoslavia. While the project has from its beginnings approached these monuments through sounds, field recordings, and architectural observations, the ''Oral History'' Video Interview series introduces another crucial dimension: the voices of people who have encountered, studied, remembered, cared for, interpreted, or otherwise developed a personal or professional relationship with these built memorial sites.
The interviews are conceived not simply as conventional biographical conversations, but as forms of situated knowledge: each testimony emerges from a particular relationship between an individual, a monument, and the historical and social environment in which that monument exists. The selected speakers bring different forms of expertise and experience to the conversation, including personal memories, professional research, artistic practice, local knowledge, cultural activism, architectural interpretation, and reflections on the constantly changing political meanings of the memorial landscape.
The interviews are conceived not simply as conventional biographical conversations, but as forms of situated knowledge: each testimony emerges from a particular relationship between an individual, a monument, and the historical and social environment in which that monument exists. The selected speakers bring different forms of expertise and experience to the conversation, including personal memories, professional research, artistic practice, local knowledge, cultural activism, architectural interpretation, and reflections on the constantly changing political meanings of the memorial landscape.
Photo: Nina Pernat
SOUND INSTALLATIONS
László Juhász – Field Recordings from Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-2
8-channel Site-Specific Sound Installation, 2026
Description coming soon...
László Juhász – Field Recordings from Slovenia and Serbia
8-channel Site Specific Sound Installation, 2026
Beyond the intrinsic acoustic properties of the monuments under examination, relatively little is known about their broader acoustic environments. Most of these distinctive and singular structures were erected in remote rural settings, typically at a considerable distance from urbanized areas. However, a number of examples are situated within city centres, suburban zones, or in proximity to villages, resulting in a wide and heterogeneous spectrum of ambient soundscapes.
The environmental sounds featured in this 55-minute multichannel sound installation were recorded in Ilirska Bistrica and Dražgoše in Slovenia, as well as in Čačak in Serbia, during 2021 and 2024 by the Slovenian recordist and sound engineer Jernej Babnik Romaniuk. The recordings were not subjected to post-production manipulation and thus retain a high degree of fidelity to the original acoustic conditions.
The presented soundscape was composed from ten different recordings by producer-curator László Juhász in March 2026. The site-specific installation, designed for an eight-channel speaker configuration, was realized by composer Tilen Lebar for presentation at Alkatraz Gallery.
8-channel Site-Specific Sound Installation, 2026
Description coming soon...
László Juhász – Field Recordings from Slovenia and Serbia
8-channel Site Specific Sound Installation, 2026
Beyond the intrinsic acoustic properties of the monuments under examination, relatively little is known about their broader acoustic environments. Most of these distinctive and singular structures were erected in remote rural settings, typically at a considerable distance from urbanized areas. However, a number of examples are situated within city centres, suburban zones, or in proximity to villages, resulting in a wide and heterogeneous spectrum of ambient soundscapes.
The environmental sounds featured in this 55-minute multichannel sound installation were recorded in Ilirska Bistrica and Dražgoše in Slovenia, as well as in Čačak in Serbia, during 2021 and 2024 by the Slovenian recordist and sound engineer Jernej Babnik Romaniuk. The recordings were not subjected to post-production manipulation and thus retain a high degree of fidelity to the original acoustic conditions.
The presented soundscape was composed from ten different recordings by producer-curator László Juhász in March 2026. The site-specific installation, designed for an eight-channel speaker configuration, was realized by composer Tilen Lebar for presentation at Alkatraz Gallery.
INSTALLATION OBJECT
Borut Wenzel – Structure
Installation Object, 2026
The mobile exhibition structure Sounding Spomenik is a modular aluminium construction measuring 4 × 3 × 3 m. Its conceptual design was developed in collaboration between Borut Wenzel and Nataša Serec, while the final conceptual solution and full realisation are the work of Borut Wenzel. It is conceived as a hybrid of a gallery space and an art installation, combining photography, video, projection and multichannel sound into an immersive spatial experience.
Within the context of the project, aluminium is not merely a functional choice, but also a deliberate reference to the material and ideological language of the modernist structures of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The exhibition structure thus establishes continuity with the historical layers of space, meanwhile reinterpreting them through contemporary artistic and sonic practices.
Its mobility allows it to be installed in a variety of contexts – from galleries and museums to public spaces and festival venues – ensuring an independent, technically adequate and aesthetically coherent presentation of the project across different locations. In addition to serving as exhibition infrastructure, it also functions as an autonomous art installation, as its formal and material design is inseparably linked to the programme content-wise.
The structure was produced with the support of co-funding from JSKD – The Public Fund for Cultural Activities 2025.
Installation Object, 2026
The mobile exhibition structure Sounding Spomenik is a modular aluminium construction measuring 4 × 3 × 3 m. Its conceptual design was developed in collaboration between Borut Wenzel and Nataša Serec, while the final conceptual solution and full realisation are the work of Borut Wenzel. It is conceived as a hybrid of a gallery space and an art installation, combining photography, video, projection and multichannel sound into an immersive spatial experience.
Within the context of the project, aluminium is not merely a functional choice, but also a deliberate reference to the material and ideological language of the modernist structures of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The exhibition structure thus establishes continuity with the historical layers of space, meanwhile reinterpreting them through contemporary artistic and sonic practices.
Its mobility allows it to be installed in a variety of contexts – from galleries and museums to public spaces and festival venues – ensuring an independent, technically adequate and aesthetically coherent presentation of the project across different locations. In addition to serving as exhibition infrastructure, it also functions as an autonomous art installation, as its formal and material design is inseparably linked to the programme content-wise.
The structure was produced with the support of co-funding from JSKD – The Public Fund for Cultural Activities 2025.
Photo: Nina Pernat
VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
Tea Grahek Lebar – Milana Zarić plays Čačak
Video Documentation of a Concert Performance, 2026
The video documents and, simultaneously, reinterprets the live performance part of the evening entitled Sonotopia: Sounding Spomenik, which took place at Osmo/za in Ljubljana in April 2025. It was created as an audiovisual record of a performance by the Serbian harpist Milana Zarić, augmented by Jernej Babnik Romaniuk’s multichannel sound distribution of unmanipulated field recordings and live visualization by the Croatian intermedia artist Lina Rica.
At the core of the video is the interplay between instrumental performance and field recordings captured at the Memorial Park of Struggle and Victory in Čačak, Serbia (designed by Bogdan Bogdanović, completed in 1980). These sonic materials establish a dialogue between the gallery space and the distant monument site, where the sound of architecture, landscape and historical memory is transmitted and transformed within a new context.
The visual layer does not function merely as an accompaniment, but rather as an equal element that interprets and expands the acoustic experience, whereas the multichannel sound setup creates a spatial perception that exceeds the documentary function of the field recordings. This video thus does not simply document the event, but rather transforms it into an autonomous artwork – a sound-visual composition that continues the exploration of the acoustic properties of monuments and their place within the contemporary cultural and historical imaginary.
Milana Zarić – harp, objects
Jernej Babnik Romaniuk – field recordings, sound distribution
Lina Rica – live visualisation
Video recorded on 7 April 2025 at Osmo/za, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Filmed and edited by Tea Grahek Lebar
Ana Grobler – Manja Ristić plays Popina
Video Installation, 2026
Description coming soon...
Video Documentation of a Concert Performance, 2026
The video documents and, simultaneously, reinterprets the live performance part of the evening entitled Sonotopia: Sounding Spomenik, which took place at Osmo/za in Ljubljana in April 2025. It was created as an audiovisual record of a performance by the Serbian harpist Milana Zarić, augmented by Jernej Babnik Romaniuk’s multichannel sound distribution of unmanipulated field recordings and live visualization by the Croatian intermedia artist Lina Rica.
At the core of the video is the interplay between instrumental performance and field recordings captured at the Memorial Park of Struggle and Victory in Čačak, Serbia (designed by Bogdan Bogdanović, completed in 1980). These sonic materials establish a dialogue between the gallery space and the distant monument site, where the sound of architecture, landscape and historical memory is transmitted and transformed within a new context.
The visual layer does not function merely as an accompaniment, but rather as an equal element that interprets and expands the acoustic experience, whereas the multichannel sound setup creates a spatial perception that exceeds the documentary function of the field recordings. This video thus does not simply document the event, but rather transforms it into an autonomous artwork – a sound-visual composition that continues the exploration of the acoustic properties of monuments and their place within the contemporary cultural and historical imaginary.
Milana Zarić – harp, objects
Jernej Babnik Romaniuk – field recordings, sound distribution
Lina Rica – live visualisation
Video recorded on 7 April 2025 at Osmo/za, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Filmed and edited by Tea Grahek Lebar
Ana Grobler – Manja Ristić plays Popina
Video Installation, 2026
Description coming soon...
PHOTO EXHIBITIONS
László Juhász – Concrete Lines – The Originals
Photo Exhibition, 2026
The photographic exhibition Concrete Lines was originally conceived for presentation as part of Wien Modern 36 (Vienna, December 2023). The conceptual framework of the exhibition engaged with the dialectical relationship between the whole and the fragment: on the one hand, the totality of the potentially infinite soundscapes that exist within and around the monuments, and on the other, the necessarily partial and temporally bounded recordings that capture only limited segments of these acoustic environments. In this sense, the exhibited material reflected critically on processes of selection, mediation, and representation inherent in both sound recording and curatorial practice.
The photographs presented in the current iteration of the exhibition consist of the original, unedited images captured during field recording sessions in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. Visually, the images foreground close-up perspectives of architectural elements, deliberately excluding human presence. Emphasis is placed on minor details, material textures, and surface conditions—features that, while often overlooked, play a significant role in shaping, reflecting, and modulating sound. By isolating these elements, the photographs draw attention to the material agencies that contribute to the acoustic character of the sites.
The photographic material was produced during recording sessions conducted in Ilirska Bistrica and Dražgoše in Slovenia; Sinj and Jasenovac in Croatia; and Popina and Čačak in Serbia, over the course of fieldwork carried out in 2021 and 2024.
László Juhász – Concrete Lines
Photo Exhibition, 2023
Description coming soon...
Photo Exhibition, 2026
The photographic exhibition Concrete Lines was originally conceived for presentation as part of Wien Modern 36 (Vienna, December 2023). The conceptual framework of the exhibition engaged with the dialectical relationship between the whole and the fragment: on the one hand, the totality of the potentially infinite soundscapes that exist within and around the monuments, and on the other, the necessarily partial and temporally bounded recordings that capture only limited segments of these acoustic environments. In this sense, the exhibited material reflected critically on processes of selection, mediation, and representation inherent in both sound recording and curatorial practice.
The photographs presented in the current iteration of the exhibition consist of the original, unedited images captured during field recording sessions in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. Visually, the images foreground close-up perspectives of architectural elements, deliberately excluding human presence. Emphasis is placed on minor details, material textures, and surface conditions—features that, while often overlooked, play a significant role in shaping, reflecting, and modulating sound. By isolating these elements, the photographs draw attention to the material agencies that contribute to the acoustic character of the sites.
The photographic material was produced during recording sessions conducted in Ilirska Bistrica and Dražgoše in Slovenia; Sinj and Jasenovac in Croatia; and Popina and Čačak in Serbia, over the course of fieldwork carried out in 2021 and 2024.
László Juhász – Concrete Lines
Photo Exhibition, 2023
Description coming soon...
Photo: Nina Pernat
Photo: László Juhász