Exhibition opening • Špela Ambrož: Between System and Freedom

In her artistic practice, Špela Ambrož explores printmaking as an open medium, combining it with video, sound, and spatial installations. She intertwines traditional printmaking techniques with digital technologies, understanding the medium primarily as a vehicle for an idea—each work emerges through a search for the form that best supports its content. At the centre of her practice are questions of identity, memory, and the ways in which we experience the contemporary world. Drawing on personal experiences and intertwining them with broader social questions, her work moves beyond intimate expression to open up a wider reflection on the relationship between the individual and the environment in which they live. Rather than offering unambiguous interpretations, she creates space for multiple readings, inviting viewers to bring their own experiences and interpretations into the work.

In this intermedia sound and spatial installation, Špela Ambrož turns, for the first time in a more pronounced way, to sound as an independent carrier of meaning. The work emerges from her master’s research and explores the relationship between artistic autonomy and the conditions of contemporary cultural production. This is no longer merely a question concerning the artistic field, but a reflection of a broader social reality in which creativity is increasingly shaped by demands for productivity, efficiency, and constant availability. The installation therefore extends beyond a reflection on the position of the artist and speaks to an experience that resonates with many. We live in a society that encourages growth, achievement, and the constant pushing of personal limits, while often leaving little room for silence, reflection, and rest. The consequence is not merely fatigue, but also a growing sense of emptiness that increasingly manifests as burnout—not simply as a personal struggle, but as a symptom of a system that measures human worth primarily through productivity.

Sound in the installation is not an accompaniment to the visual setting, but its central component. It addresses the visitor not only on a conceptual level but also physically, placing them within a sonic environment where listening becomes a bodily experience. The architecture of the Courthouse Tower also plays an important role in this process. Its circular floor plan allows for the creation of a continuous flow of sound that gradually draws the visitor in. The space is therefore not merely the setting for the installation, but an active part of it, adding a new spatial and symbolic dimension to the sonic experience. The circular movement of sound becomes a metaphor for the systems in which we move through our everyday lives and from which we often find it difficult to escape. The work does not offer simple answers or clear-cut messages. Instead, it creates a situation in which visitors can reflect on their own position within these mechanisms. Its critique of contemporary ways of living is not conveyed through explanation, but through the direct experience of space, sound, and one’s own body.

Doroteja Kotnik

About the Author

Špela Ambrož holds a master’s degree in Art Education and is currently completing a second master’s degree at the Department of Printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, under the mentorship of Associate Professor Zora Stančič.

Her current practice focuses on hybrid explorations of the interplay between traditional artistic techniques and contemporary media, including video, animation, and installation. She consciously avoids limiting herself to a single medium or field of expression. Her artistic practice is rooted in an exploration of identity, memory, and the intersections of personal and social narratives. These thematic starting points are not treated as fixed concepts; rather, they are continually reshaped in response to the medium in which she works. She is particularly interested in combining material and analogue processes with digital tools, exploring new possibilities of expression through printmaking, photography, and moving image.

Having completed two degree programmes, she has increasingly come to understand her practice as an independent and responsible authorial process that allows her to think beyond predetermined institutional frameworks. She views the gallery space as an important opportunity for networking, research, and the public articulation of artistic expression, while simultaneously rejecting its exclusive position as the only legitimate space for artistic practice and professional livelihood. Such a narrow understanding of the art world often forces artists into inflexible working models that fail to reflect the complexity of contemporary creative practices.

She therefore consciously cultivates a broader understanding of her role as a visual artist, working at the intersection of artistic creation, design, curating, project management, and the production and editing of visual content. She considers this diverse and multifaceted practice an advantage, as it enables her to maintain flexibility and autonomy while building a sustainable practice within the realities of the cultural field.