Irena Lagator Pejović

works

Plastic Water

2017
polyethylene surface covering the construction site

Courtesy of the artist.
Photo: Irena Lagator Pejovic

This work was part of the solo exhibition: For the Common Good, within the framework of “Im Vorbeigehen II/17” at KU with Artist Talk at Kepler Salon, in Linz, Austria

The intervention was realized in connection with research focus on Central and Eastern European art histories and was accompanied by a guest lecture series Global Art History [3] (October 7, 2019–January 20, 2020). https://www.artandeducation.net/announcements/290068/irena-lagator-pejovifor-the-common-good
Curated by Karolina Majewska-Güde

Text: Karolina Majewska-Güde published in Monika leisch-Kiesl, Franziska Heiß Hg, Was Sagt die Kunst? Gegenwartskunst und wissenschaft im dialog, Transkript, 2022, p. 266-274

The photo series Plastic Water shows a seemingly water-like surface with a setting Sun reflection on it. But, what is documented here is the soil, the ground on which we stand. This photographed thick black polyethylene surface covers a huge square construction site of a future temporary garbage dump at the Adriatic coast which is dug in the midst of an old pine tree forest. As the surface is so big, and the plastic so thick, the sky mirrors in it so that the nuances of black color move toward brighter blue grayish tones. While standing on it, one is inevitably seduced with the illusion of standing on a water surface. The reflection of a setting Sun on this plastic surface is made visible here with intention to demonstrate how our perception of reality can be easily manipulated, blurred or navigated under often romantic promises of a “common good” and “development”.

This series acts as an alarm making us aware of the new age and world that is arising with the neoliberal-oriented economies in which we are still allowed to act under limited responsibilities, with new, “experimental” and “temporary” technologies, but as well as with various processes of environmental devastation that are still developing under our lack of consciousness and agency to prevent them, precisely because our globalized soil is rendered unstable. It engages critically with the issues of perception, economy, and insensible consumerists’ logic in a time when human destructive behavior towards the environment, natural resources and the non-human world has reached unprecedented dimensions.

Reflecting on the relationship between the human world and water, according to Astrida Neimanis, allows a new understanding of community. It also generates possibilities of a new language that enables the transformation of an agreement between the human and non-human world. This work explores visual possibilities of speaking about human responsibility in relation to our most valuable natural resources such as water in time of climate tensions, as well as our many still persistent illusions.