From Thursday, December 17, 2020, in the Oris House of Architecture (Kralja Držislava 3) in Zagreb, see the exhibition of director and photographer Anja Strelec.

Anja Strelec (born Varaždin, 1985) is a Croatian director, photographer and audiovisual artist who lives and works in Brussels. In her work, she mostly concentrates on social topics, portraying both individual human stories as well as society as a whole. Her multidisciplinary approach, working with a diversity of visual formats - video, documentary film and street photography – enables multifaceted storytelling.

Anja is a director of several award-winning documentary films shown at international festivals and on TV channels in different countries. She also participated with her work in solo and group exhibitions in Croatia, France, Slovenia, Germany, Greece and Belgium.

After obtaining a Master’s degree in audiovisual and documentary film directing at University of Toulouse Le Mirail, France, Anja has been working for the last ten years as a director and, together with her artistic work, has also held audiovisual and photography workshops in Europe, Africa and Asia, most notably for the European Commission and international organisations.

The project ‘Interspaces’ was produced during the first lockdown in Brussels, arising from the need she felt to document and archive a unique moment in history – a hitherto unknown situation and people’s reaction to it. Limitations to movement, the closing of shops and cultural institutions, the wearing of masks - even in open spaces - and the fear of the virus, all shaped a new look for the city which now takes on the appearance of scenery.

Architecture obtains new dimensions and meanings, and through the emptiness of the streets and squares, new relational ‘interspaces’ are created. What is more, ‘social distancing’ serves to drive people apart, making them distrustful of each other and creating even more distance between them. These interspaces, physical and metaphorical, are explored and documented by Anja – first the unknown, following life under the lockdown, and then the shift and adaptation towards the new reality.

The photographs of the exhibition are connected twofold: black and white photos transposed with colour photos and city, and architectural photos with portraits of people emphasising the multilayered aspects of lockdown and its effect on the life of the city. Interspaces are created on several levels: between architecture, between people and also between architecture and the people. The emptiness of usually bustling tourist and business centres of Brussels such as Mont des Arts, the European Quarter and Royal Palace, seem at once grand and threatening, like architecture frozen in time. People, now isolated from each other and mostly with their identity hidden behind a mask, display both the insecurity and uncertainty of tomorrow, as well as defiance as present life continues and can’t be denied.     

Along with the photographs, a short stop-motion video is also presented at the exhibition capturing the atmosphere during the lockdown - the simultaneousness of interruption, the continuation of city life, and the adjustment to the new reality.

Patron of the exhibition: Economic and Comercial Office of the Embassy of Belgium in Croatia

Visits to the exhibitions are carried out in accordance with the recommendations for the prevention of COVID-19 disease during public events and gatherings, issued by the Croatian Institute of Public Health.

The exibition will stay open until January 11 2021, every day from 9.00 to 19.00, Saturday from 10.00 to 13.00.