Sanja Matkovic
Stolen Childhoods (2022)
Sound Art Brighton & ONCA Commission
Venue
ONCA Gallery
BN1 4GB
Dates & time
Thursday 10th March – Saturday 2nd April 2022
16.00–18.00 (opening event 10/03)
13.00–18.00 (Wed–Fri)
13.00–16.00 (Sat)
Stolen Childhoods is an interactive artwork that intends to share dreams of unrealised childhoods through an installation of sound, space and photographic images – brought to life by a visitor’s touch. A colourful, tactile object, embedded with touch sensors, placed in the centre of the installation space, triggers some of the sounds of train trips, beach picnics, city walks, hugs, family celebrations, home welcoming and playful moments the artist missed as a child. The installation will wrap the visitor in dream-like landscapes of childhood playfulness and a safe hug of life.
“For this project I wanted to explore the idea of stolen childhoods, a place where unrealised dreams are stored. As a child from a broken family living in Slovenia, a country that never felt like my own, I felt as if I were deprived of the basic joys that every child should experience. To escape the hurt, I used to daydream. Every day I invented virtual landscapes full of soft shapes and colour, accompanied by comforting sounds.“ – Sanja Matkovic.
Stolen Childhoods was commissioned by Sound Art Brighton and ONCA following an open call for proposals in 2021.
This exhibition has been made possible thanks to the generous support of The Chalk Cliff Trust.
Sanja Matkovic
I was born in Bosnia and moved to Slovenia when I was 3 years old. In 1991 Slovenia voted to leave the Yugoslav federation and war followed. I was 15. The war didn’t affect me directly but it had a huge impact on my sense of belonging and identity. In 2016 I moved to Brighton and for some peculiar reason felt at home there straight away. My love for creating digital art stories comes from my other passion – electronic music. Through the process of making patterns and layers out of digital photos, I found a way to merge and shape these sound pieces into new, poetic, visual stories. By combining images with poetry, layers with loops, and pixels with beats I created a series of digital art prints, with the aim of blurring the lines between fine art and art photography. The open call from Sound Art Brighton and ONCA gave me the opportunity to combine my art practice with sound.
Venue information
ONCA Gallery
14 St. George’s Place
Brighton
East Sussex
BN1 4GB
https://onca.org.uk/
info@onca.org.uk
01273 607101
Opening hours
Thursday 10th March – Sunday 2nd April 2022
16.00–18.00 (opening event 10/03)
13.00 – 18.00 (Wed–Fri)
13.00–16.00 (Sat)
Bernhard Leitner • Kopfräume / Headscapes
SOUND INSTALLATION
• Attenborough Centre
• 09 March – 18 March 2022
A/B Smith • ICU
AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATION
• Brighton CCA: Dorset Place
• 04 March – 19 March 2022
SOUNDER • Sounder Postcards
SOUND INSTALLATION
• Brighton CCA
• 04 March – 19 March 2022
Joshua Le Gallienne • Surrender
SOUND INSTALLATION
• Wild Park
• 12 March 2022
Sensing Sound: Ali Donaldson in Conversation with Chris Cutler
EVENT
• ONCA Barge
• 17 March 2022
Jez riley French • Microlistening Workshop
WORKSHOP
• Hillcrest Centre, Newhaven
• 02 March 2022
Kathy Hinde • Chirp & Drift
SOUND + LIGHT INSTALLATION
• Attenborough Centre
• 09 March – 20 March 2022
Jean Martin & Wil Pennycook • One Minute Past
AUDIOVISUAL WORK
• Brighton CCA
• 04 March – 19 March 2022
Chris Sciacca • Integrated Soundscapes: Brighton
AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATION
• Attenborough Centre
• 09 March – 18 March 2022
SOUNDER • Sound Skater
PERFORMANCE
• The Level
• 06 March 2022
Sound Art Brighton's Sound Art Disco
EVENT
• The Rose Hill
• 17 March 2022
Place Metal Strings (Jez riley French, Adam Bushell + Alice Eldridge)
PERFORMANCE
• The Rose Hill
• 01 March 2022
Olivia Louvel • Doggerland Channels
AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATION
• Phoenix Art Space
• 02 March – 06 March 2022
Toby Hinks • Foci
SOUND INSTALLATION
• Gallery Lock In
• 09 March – 13 March 2022
Sanja Matkovic • Stolen Childhoods
SOUND INSTALLATION
• ONCA Gallery
• 10 March – 02 April 2022
Chris Sciacca • Patcham to Chattri War Memorial Soundwalk
EVENT
• Patcham
• 19 March 2022
Non-binary & Queer Perspectives on Listening
WORKSHOP
• Brighton CCA
• 19 March 2022
Combining local sound art talents with international guests, the festival celebrates the diversity and range of this broad and hybrid art practice and pays homage to the multitude of sounds to be found in our city – with the Downs on one side and the sea on the other, as part of a UNESCO biosphere.
