The Colour of Time — Ziva Moskric

The Colour of Time is a small solo show, where I explore time through artists’ books and other objects. While drawing on literature for inspiration and motifs, the show illustrates various notions and perceptions of time. Experimenting with analogue and digital media combined, the show blends illustration, art and design.

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Živa Moškrič: The Colour of Time / Barva časa
August 17th – October 19th, 2024
Galerija Ars Medica

Opening night reception: Saturday, August 17th, 7 pm
Ars Medica Gallery, Grožnjan, CroatiaOpening hours: open on weekends. Weekdays by appointment.

My initial outline for this show was based around ideas about the book as an object. But when I first visited the house and the gallery space as a part of the preparation, I instantly realised that this centuries old and lovingly preserved space was holding time, time was present in the gallery like a substance – and I knew that the show must focus on time.

This past-future continuum in which we are always on the fleeting point of now; the weird overarching always present component of life that each individual responds to differently. As important to us as the physical environment is in terms of place. We are very well aware of our placement in space, within the world, but we take our placement in time as given.

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Defining time in a way applicable to all fields is impossible. Multiple notions and definitions of time exist across psychology, philosophy and physics.

I found the dichotomy in Henri Bergson's philosophy between duration (lived time) and spatialized time (conceptual time), most resonating.

“In Time and Free Will Bergson distinguishes between two types of time, conceptualized and experienced. Time that is spatialized, abstracted and divided is the former, lived time the latter. Spatialized time becomes a fourth dimension of space rather than real time. Real time, what Bergson calls duration, flows, accumulates and is indivisible. [ … ] Bergson defines duration by way of consciousness. Our true inner self, our emotions, thoughts, and memories do not lie next to each other like shirts on a clothesline but flow into one another. Our consciousness is not a succession of states but a simultaneous overlapping.”

Totaro, D. (1990). Time, Bergson, and the Film Theory of Andrei Tarkovsky. Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/92190056/Time_Bergson_and_the_Film_Theory_of_Andrei_Tarkovsky
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Tierra seca (The book of Oneness)

This book starts with reading Tierra seca, a poem by Lorca. The poem is painted on a large sheet of paper (time that the reading takes is translated onto a 2D plane – the Spanish verse translated into colour in space). The sheet is then divided into spreads that are sewn together to form a book (the 2D plane is now translated back into time that it takes to leaf thorugh the book).

Having been made from one painting gives instant coherence to the book ( >> The Book of Oneness), as well as allows for unforeseen connections as distant parts of the painting come together one next to another in the codex form.

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Absorption properties of mulberry paper enable a peculiar recording of time within an image. The thickness of a line and the spread of a shape heavily depend on the speed of the brushstroke rather than pressure. Moreover, the image will continue growing, “painting itself” as the ink is slowly further absorbed even hours after I’d make the last brushstroke.

From the process of making Tierra seca – The Book of Oneness.

Colour ink on mulberry paper, photography, bookbinding thread

The Book of Oneness [ past ]
When the image was still whole.

Transparencies / layering: “Bergson’s duration” – two parts of the poem overlaid, the past stretches into the present.

Borges in a Cherry Orchard

A book inspired by Borges’ short story The Garden of Forking Paths. Transparencies enable seeing multiple layers simultaneously, like multiple fates running parallel to one another in Brorges’ concept.

From the process of making Borges in a Cherry Orchard

The Book of Mirrors

The poem Capriche (La suite de los espejos) by Federico García Lorca is the content source for the third book. While the illustration draws on the motifs from the poem, the book in itself works like a mirror, both spread to spread as well as a whole.

The Book of Untime (Antigone/Hamlet)

Borges’ note from The New Refutation of Time “The vociferous catastrophes of a general order — fires, wars, epidemics — are one single pain, illusorily multiplied in many mirrors.” is illustrated here by mixing the pages of the two stories, negating time as a chronological succession and putting into focus the pain – the emotion itself.

It both follows and opposes Borges’s view: yes we know how much pain and suffering is in these two stories. The characters are aching for different reasons but pain is all the same. Yet we also know that the succession of events in the causal chain of events in the tragedies are both the reasons for the pain as well as enhance the viewer’s perception of pain through identification and suspense.

Futureboard

The fortune-telling board can be either used by one or more people (it’s more fun to play it with friends or even strangers). You may ask the board a specific question or have it reflect on your future in general. Then throw all four dice. The board provides a basic key for beginners, but the players are quickly inspired to explore their own interpretations. Then pick the hint card – it will shed further light on your interpretation, or make you dig deeper.

Futureboard is a metaphor for a perception of a work of art: with the help of minimal clues the viewer is encouraged to find their own interpretation, which will always be subjective, based on previous life experience and personal hopes & expectations, and linked to values & personality.

Installation views
Photos by Miha Likar, Živa Moškrič

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