Maribor Theatre Festival 2012 E-xhibition

A virtual exhibition realised by the Maribor Theatre Festival, the Ljubljana City Theatre, Novi ZATO. Institute, the National Theatre Museum of Slovenia and the Slovene National Theatre Drama Ljubljana

"It is only amid the revolution that something similar occurs to that kind of bonding between people. Spectators are never so sympathetic, so closely connected to each other as they are during that fleeting hour or two during the performance”, Jovan Hristić wrote about the phenomenon of theatre. It is most probably the common experience, the oneness of the audience and its interaction, which represents the greatest magic of theatre. Yet this nowness of the performance is also the reason for which theatre out of all arts is the least prone to recorded memory. Whereas we may repeatedly view a painting, a sculpture, or a movie or hear the music over and again, what we are left with after a performance are just vicarious records, testimonies – sketches, notes, photos, critical reviews, theatre programmes, audio or video recordings … And none of those can reproduce the atmosphere in the auditorium and the uniqueness of actor’s interpretation. What it can do though is to evoke our memory and reflection.

This is the aim of our first exhibition – with it we want to document the greatest achievements of Slovene theatre and playhouse, save them from oblivion and bring them closer to a wider range of audiences through the World Wide Web.

The Maribor Theatre Festival 2012 e-xhibition features Igor Samobor, last year’s laureate of the lifetime achievement award the Borštnik Ring, and The Storm, which was awarded the Maribor Theatre Festival Grand Prix for best production. Although we are preparing for the first time a virtual exhibition and this is a "pilot project”, we are already planning its sequel. We would like to add new features each year so that it would eventually become an inseparable part of the Maribor Theatre Festival, that is, of Slovenian theatre institutions and associations. Perhaps in time we can expand it to other festival awards and – if we are fancied by luck and the Ministry – gradually add also the past laureates and previously awarded productions.

The exhibition is accessible from 24 October 2013 at www.sigledal.org and on the websites of the participating institutions.

Project Leader: Samo M. Strelec (Novi ZATO.); Curator of the Exhibition: Tea Rogelj (National Theatre Museum of Slovenia); Computer Programming: Gregor Matevc (Novi ZATO.).

Project collaborators: Alenka Klabus Vesel (Ljubljana City Theatre), Mojca Kranjc (Slovene National Theatre Drama Ljubljana), Špela Lešnik (Maribor Theatre Festival), Tamara Matevc (Novi ZATO.), Tone Stojko (PRODOK TEATER TV and Ljubljana Society for the Preservation of Theatre Heritage), Daša Šprinčnik (Maribor Theatre Festival).