
Exhibition realised in collaboration with the Festival Grenze Arsenali Festival, with the essential support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Belgrado, and book published by Studio Faganel.
The story is the result of hours of walking, observing, and listening to all the living elements that make up the island: the land, the stone, the people. In this precise order, I sought to build a series of events that have characterized and made this place unique. I started from the land that men dug to bring the stone to light. I arrived at the land that is now preserved in the cavities that give rise to the underground gardens. In this place, the real past and present blend with facts, legends, possible truths, and distant mythologies: the literary contribution of Marilena Renda is essential in conveying these words, as she was invited to participate in the project by drafting unpublished texts. Photography and words translate and strengthen the meaning of the cavity, understood as a generative space.
Alessandra Calò
Word and image have always been in a mutually generative dialogue. The image evokes absence, while the word brings it to life and sustains it. The twentieth century turned this into a drama – a creative conflict over what forms, settles, and becomes the artisan or material of an imaginary. The installation at the Italian Cultural Institute in Belgrade prompts the relationship between iconographic text and narrative text in the realm of myth, where “high” and “low” vie for the kingdom of storytelling and memory. A tale without an incipit, development, or conclusion unfolds linearly along the walls of the room, without interruption. The visitor is on an empty island. This allows every “once upon a time” to begin anew from the perspective of the frontal viewer, reflecting in the circularity of their own archetype, whether celestial or maritime, earthly or divine. Here, texts emerge from the image like the voice of a sibyl from the cavity plunged into the unspeakable. The culture of syntax distills the wild chaos of nature. In the disordered secret garden, the voice of reason gathers the remnants of ancient regenerative metamorphoses. A fierce darkroom, magma and repository of found iconographic fossils, made visible only by the hand, the craftsmanship bent to the reasons of the artistic process, like ghosts: before the final immersion in the popular archive.
Simone Azzoni

Izložba realizovana u saradnji sa festivalom Festival Grenze Arsenali Festival, uz neophodnu podršku Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Belgrado, a knjiga je objavljena u izdanju Studio Faganel.
Priča je rezultat višesatne šetnje, posmatranja i osluškivanja svih živih elemenata koji čine ostrvo: zemlje, kamena, osoba. U ovom preciznom redu, pokušala sam da konstruišem niz događaja koji su karakterisali ovaj predeo i doprineli njegovoj jedinstvenosti. Počela sam od zemlje koju su ljudi iskopavali kako bi otkrili kamen. Stigla sam do zemlje koja se danas čuva u šupljinama koje stvaraju podzemne bašte. Na ovom mestu, stvarna prošlost i sadašnjost se mešaju sa činjenicama, legendama, mogućim istinama i dalekim mitologijama: književni doprinos Marilene Rende, koju smo pozvali da učestvuje u projektu i priredi neobjavljene tekstove, odigrao je ključnu ulogu u svemu ovom. Fotografija i reči prevode i jačaju značenje šupljine, podrazumevane kao plodonosan prostor.
Alesandra Kalo
Reč i slika su oduvek u međusobnom plodonosnom dijalogu. Slika evocira odsustvo, reč ga čini živim i održivim. Dvadeseti vek je od toga napravio dramu, kreativni sukob oko onoga što se formira, taloži i postaje stvaralac ili materija imaginarnog. Izložba u Italijanskom institutu za kulturu u Beogradu pospešuje odnos između ikonografskog i narativnog teksta u oblasti mita, gde se „uzvišeno“ i „prizemno“ otimaju za vladavinu pripovedanja i sećanja. Priča bez uvoda, razrade i zaključka odvija se linearno preko zidova sobe, bez prekida. Posmatrač se nalazi na praznom ostrvu kako bi „bio jednom jedan“ moglo iznova početi iz perspektive frontalnog posmatrača koji se ogleda u okviru sopstvenog arhetipa, nebeskog ili pomorskog, zemaljskog ili božanskog. Ovde tekstovi izranjaju iz slike poput glasa proročice iz šupljine potonule u neizrecivo. Kultura sintakse destiluje divlji haos prirode. U neurednoj tajnoj bašti glas razuma sakuplja ostatke drevnih regenerativnih metamorfoza. Svirepa mračna komora, magma i naslage pronađenih ikonografskih fosila koje vidljivim, poput utvara, čini samo ruka, veština koja se povija pred zakonima umetničkog procesa: pre konačnog uranjanja u narodni arhiv.
Simone Aconi

Summer is not as innocent as it looks.
Beneath the bright colours, the sticky skin and the endless light, something else unfolds.
A choreography of bodies exposed to the sun.
Rituals repeated year after year.
Moments of pleasure, excess, boredom and quiet absurdity.
In SUNBURNED STORIES, summer becomes a space of observation. A place where intimacy turns public, where gestures are exaggerated, and where the ordinary reveals its strange, almost surreal nature. Sunburned skin, plastic textures, restless children, distracted gazes, fleeting encounters, fragments of a season that feels both universal and deeply personal.
This exhibition marks the fourth collaboration between Бартcелона POP UP and Radisson Hotel, a series dedicated to paying tribute to the photobook as a central form of photographic expression. Each edition takes inspiration from a seminal publication, revisiting its themes and visual language through the eyes of contemporary photographers. On this occasion, the exhibition draws from Life’s a Beach, the iconic photobook that redefined how we look at leisure, tourism and the rituals of summer.
Conceived as a tribute to a way of looking that embraces humour, contradiction and honesty, this exhibition brings together a group of photographers who engage with the language of everyday life. Their images do not seek perfection, but presence. Not spectacle, but recognition.
There is warmth here, but also tension.
There is laughter, but also discomfort.
There is beauty, but never without friction.
Because summer, after all, is not just a place we go to,
it is something we perform.
Artists
Ana Batricevic (Serbia) @ana_batricevic
Daniel Quirarte (Mexico)
Joal Caldera (USA) @dudewiththe_camera
Jovana Kuzmanovic (Serbia) @jqzmanovic
Jean Guy Lathuilière (France)
Marie Lourier (Russia) @marie_lourier
Meri Mustapic (Croatia) @sea_mousse_
Tim Rusell (British) @timrussellphotography

Ljeto nije tako nevino kao što izgleda.
Ispod jarkih boja, ljepljive kože i beskrajnog svjetla, odvija se nešto drugo.
Koreografija tijela izloženih suncu.
Rituali koji se ponavljaju iz godine u godinu.
Trenuci zadovoljstva, pretjerivanja, dosade i tihe apsurdnosti.
U okviru izložbe SUNBURNED STORIES, ljeto postaje prostor posmatranja. Mjesto gdje intimno postaje javno, gdje su gestovi prenaglašeni, a svakodnevno otkriva svoju neobičnu, gotovo nadrealnu prirodu. Koža izgorela od sunca, plastične teksture, nemirna djeca, odsutni pogledi, prolazni susreti, fragmenti sezone koja djeluje istovremeno univerzalno i duboko lično.
Ova izložba predstavlja četvrtu saradnju između Бартcелона POP UP i Radisson Hotela, seriju posvećenu odavanju počasti foto-knjizi kao ključnom obliku fotografskog izraza. Svako izdanje polazi od jedne značajne publikacije, preispitujući njene teme i vizuelni jezik kroz radove savremenih fotografa. Ovom prilikom, izložba je inspirisana knjigom Life’s a Beach, ikoničnim fotobookom koji je redefinisao način na koji posmatramo dokolicu, turizam i ljetne rituale.
Zamišljena kao omaž načinu gledanja koji objedinjuje humor, kontradikciju i iskrenost, izložba okuplja autore koji se bave jezikom svakodnevice. Njihove slike ne teže savršenstvu, već prisutnosti. Ne spektaklu, već prepoznavanju.
Ovdje ima topline, ali i napetosti.
Ima smijeha, ali i nelagode.
Ima ljepote, ali nikada bez trenja.
Jer ljeto, na kraju, nije samo mjesto na koje odlazimo,
ono je nešto što izvodimo.
Autori
Ana Batricevic (Srbija) @ana_batricevic
Daniel Quirarte (Meksiko)
Joal Caldera (SAD) @dudewiththe_camera
Jovana Kuzmanovic (Srbija) @jqzmanovic
Jean Guy Lathuilière (Francuska)
Marie Lourier (Rusija) @marie_lourier
Meri Mustapic (Hrvatska) @sea_mousse_
Tim Rusell (Velika Britanija) @timrussellphotography
* Galleries and exhibition spaces retain the right to change the date and time of the exhibitions and other events