tranzit.sk/

A project by Matej Gavula and Jonáš Gruska

Opening: 6. February, 2022 at 6 p.m.
Accompanied by a concert by Medlen jr.

Venue: tranzit.sk, Beskydská 12, Bratislava
Open: Tuesday – Friday: 2:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

We are in the seemingly desolate environment of “donkeys” in the oil fields scattered among the pine forests around Malacky. They dynamically pump oil and create a kind of imaginary “pulse” of fossil extractivism characteristic of the current economic system. Their gradual decomposition and rusting offer a picture of a world where fossil resources cease to play their previous role — whether due to the transition to more sustainable alternatives, the emergence of a miraculous invention, or the extinction of humanity.

Before the donkeys, there was Ján Medlen, a homo faber from Gbely. He didn’t like corners and nooks where, according to him, negative energy is concentrated. He preferred circles and bubbles, organic and flowing, boundless. That is how he became an architect. He exchanged fertile soil for wetlands, which are in motion like an element. He discovered gas leaking from the ground and was not afraid to work with it. Underneath it lay the oil which the state seized and began to use to fuel the machinery of war. Oil is the detonator and fuel of military conflicts to this day.

This exhibition entitled Man Has Emerged Triumphant explores oil extraction in the Záhorie region, the history and possible future of a society built on extraction, and a creative and curious man who worked with the essence from the bowels of the earth. Sound plays a central role: the suction and movement from one cavity to another shape the architecture of the exhibition. The barrel becomes Medlen's rotunda, and concrete and bronze castings function as allegories of fossil form and density. Archival photographs and video footage of explosions reveal an invisible landscape — one that continues to ferment beneath the surface and seep into the present.

Text: Matej Gavula a Jonáš Gruska