Snezana Saraswati Petrovic is ready to immerse viewers in her own wildly wonderful, tactile world with the opening of her solo show Collateral Damage Recall at LAAA’s Gallery 825. The exhibition will be on view from January 15 – February 18, 2022.
The exhibition will take viewers into a living room and a bedroom constructed installation, with the intention of bringing awareness to climate change, and specifically the destruction of the ocean, coral reefs, and other water resources.
While playfully constructed in a realm comprised of post-apocalyptic plastic to shape a futuristic home environment, the complexity of the work is rooted in Petrovic’s own discourse on prescient environmental issues. As compelling as it is beautiful, the installation will evoke the balance between what most frightens us about the potential destruction of the planet and the ever-present beauty of the natural world. Both ideas captivate the artist.
Petrovic notes “Our most natural human habitat is a home.” Because of that she recreates a family room that utilizes principles of sacred geometry. “The room divisions applied the golden rule principle for placements of objects. The numbers of objects are also evocative of certain symbolism, such as 30 corals in the infinity mirror, shaped as the smallest island from the Great Barrier Reef. When multiplied by mirrors, 30 3D printed corals became 300 coral reefs within the parameters of these islands.”
Her use of color also reflects the dichotomy of beauty and aching loss. “The choice of a specific blue color that the space is saturated with, is a color that exists in nature: evening sky, deep water, night forest, ocean, or distant mountains. It is calming and soothing. The sound of nature is coming from a blue marlin over the fireplace. An invitation to connect with nature is even more present in the bedroom [than the family room portion of the exhibition.] The waterbed creates a feeling of floating on the water’s surface [as one is] surrounded by video projection of the underwater world of Huatulco, Mexico.” Petrovic recorded the video images while diving in that area.
The installation is also interactive. Augmented-reality photos are designed to free bleached white corals entangled in zip ties through use of the downloadable ARTIVIVE app.
Viewers can listen to the sounds, touch, read, engage in a conversation with others, or even view a Black Carbon video that presents the spread of Covid-19 related to soot.
Petrovic notes “The post-apocalyptic overarching metaphor is the amount of the plastic in the installation space. 94% of microplastic is floating in the ocean at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. My goal with installation was to use 94% of plastic to create the otherwise inviting space.” She adds, “The scientific projection indicates that by 2050, the ratio of fish to plastic will be 1:1. As a reflection to this predicament, I have made true to size a plastic zip tie Blue Marlin as a grim counterbalance to real taxidermized fish.”
In each aspect of the exhibition, Petrovic realizes the power of the global community. “We are all part of it, connected to and affecting each other. That makes us one family.”
The exhibition is comprised of some 136 individual art pieces, assembled into one cohesive installation. These include four video projections, four augmented-reality photos of plastic-trapped corals and the use of the ARTIVIE app to release them; forty-eight colorful 3D printed, miniature corals; a memorial wall of white corals; a family-tree mind-map showing the progression of Petrovic’s Collateral Damage project, which has grown over the years since its inaugural form at MOAH several years ago. Additional features include found objects, more than ten zip tie sculptures; printed vinyl images; and a 13-foot-long taxidermized blue marlin, along with repurposed furniture pieces and a fireplace mantel.
There is even an aromatherapy experience that can be triggered in the bedroom portion of the exhibition; viewers will get a scent of ocean breezes, in yet another component of what is a dazzling compilation of individual works, as astonishing and delightful to view as they are profoundly urgent.
The delicate, even ephemeral appearance of her materials belies their longevity, Petrovic attests “The zip tie netting feels fragile and ephemeral, and that is my intention, where the true properties are hidden, much like in our daily encounter with the plastic… we use it and discard it, but it does not go away.”
Petrovic hopes that viewers will take from the installation a sense of “Hope, empowerment to take action, and that we are not alone. We are all family. The plastic abundance is intended to make us open the eyes to our own everyday lives and plastic overuse.” She notes “I also hope that people will have fun, be engaged and intrigued to find their own answers.”
How could they not be? The gallery, refurbished and re-painted in blue with blue plastic grass as a carpet, will create an environment at once familiar, cozy, and non-traditional, one that the artist is moving and creating in just a six-day period.
The playfulness inherent in Petrovic’s work is always captivating. “Creating and sharing art is about communication and connection. My artwork is about hope and what makes me smile… A little bit of whimsy and intrigue makes any grim subject more bearable, while giving us a hope and necessary distance to see that healing or solutions are at our own disposal.”
LAAA is located at 825 N. La Cienega in Los Angeles. The opening is January 15 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. no reservations necessary, mask required; after the opening, through February 18th by appointment.
- Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist