The international group exhibition The Air of Songs is the materialized portrayal of the bonds that have sprung from the activities surrounding the AIR CELEIA artist’s residency programme at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Celje. The year 2014 will see the 10th anniversary of its implementation, and with it the aspiration to meet up again with the foreign artists that were hosted in Celje, bringing together also the Slovene artists that were given, through the joint partnership, the opportunity to live and work in Ireland as part of the artist’s residency at Flax Art Studios in Belfast. 

The Air of Songs is therefore an exhibition that is primarily conceived with the aim to re-actualize the existing international links. This includes work created after the residency in either Celje or Belfast, hence offering an insight into the most recent art practice of the participating artists.

The works which are diverse in subject matter (from addressing scientifically unprovable phenomena such as the paranormal field, to the reinterpretation of events from the past or exposing the topical issues of today, the power of the entertainment industry in forming a collective consciousness, the effects of consumerism on individual subjectivity and the natural environment ...) all share an explicit use of sound, various ways of using the voice, music, singing … And this is also where the title of the exhibition comes from.

HR-Stamenov - Jaroslav Kyša - Susan MacWilliam - Katarina Zdjelar - Iva Tratnik - Helen Stratford - [Franc Purg & VOODOO MULE] Purg & VOODOO MULE - Mark Požlep - [Nika Oblak & Primož Novak] Oblak & Novak - Momu & No Es -
Curator Maja Hodošček -

A ghost metro train, which has already been all around Europe, appears in Berlin. 
It ignores physics, gaps between buildings, space and time. Based on a light phenomenon, “the light Hole”, the ghost metro train turns into a travelling myth, which constitutes itself upon its loose artifacts, collected on the way. The train becomes an artifact itself, as it could appear at any public space―unpredictably, unable to be tracked by route or starting point. 
HR-Stamenov suggests a light spectacle, as a train literally “appears” inside a building, leaving passers-by unknowing of what they have just seen. The immediate attention, which the media installation produces, serves as an illustration of a rather nostalgic gesture, the fascination of observing a train passing by at times when this occurrence is rare sight. Similarly, it illustrates a spectacle in public space, as it transforms a three-dimensional object―such as a train―into a screen-based visual phenomenon. It is the size, the picture and the sound of a real train; it be-comes a screen, a motion picture, a blinking advertising sign. Located in the center of Berlin―at the LEAP venue on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße at Alexanderplatz―the Ghost Train is also in con¬stant reference to its original symbolic context. Every couple of minutes a train passes through or stops at the central city station (Alexanderplatz) which the glass-façade of the installation points at.

HR-Stamenov -
Curator Sandra Moskova -