ABOUT THE SERIES

The artist’s visual narrative is and is not a story of a building. It is a testimony of an eye that reads visually wherever it turns. A true constant in her work are the language of balance, harmonious and minimalistic, the clarity, rhythm or repetition of simple archetypical shapes, the tangibility of textures and vivid contrasts between light and shadow. Just as the feelings of peace, quiet and harmony which she places in the former Servite monastery, in the hopes of a bright future.

Every artistic series speaks of the author themselves. With Nataša Segulin, we are always in spaces which are somehow remote, even though they’re bustling with people at the same time (the port of Koper, quarries, tourist destinations with cultural heritage value). The cause for the tale of lumen is a love for art and cultural heritage, a personal involvement in a physical space, the city of Koper, and the artist’s own emotions related to the building, from which the name of the series evolves. »Lumen as light, radiance, and the happiness and joy accompanying the birth of so many Primorska and Istria residents, I was born here, as was my family… light as hope for a better tomorrow.« Her positive credo is recognized as part of her photographic expression and although she is mainly concerned with formalist aspects of her photography, she tried, in her newest series, to affect a change in the collective social consciousness. If we look at Sartre’s definition of engaged literature, which states that »literature reveals to the reader their own situation, for them to take responsibility for it«, then in terms of defining an artistic style, her engaged poetic questioning of society’s attitudes toward heritage as one of the key elements of national identity has, in the case of Lumen, crossed the threshold of contemporary art.

Renata Štebih