APN!

You are invited to the opening of the APN exhibition! Dušan Letnar in the premises of the Photo club Kamnik, on Wednesday 10 August 2022 at 19:30.

 

 

Dušan Letnar returns to Kamfest with a new exhibition. After the street exhibition of photos from Barutana, which immortalized the buildings of the former gunpowder store and also put on display one that no longer exists today, this time it is exhibiting a series of photos that take visitors to the past in a different way. There are photos showing the process of traditional lime burning in Spodnje Stranja.

In the past, there was a great need for lime in Kamniški. Lime burning brought profit to many families, so dozens of limestone quarries could be found throughout the municipality. Lime was used not only in masonry, where it was eventually replaced by other materials, but also in tanning hides. The latter was extremely important for the stone industry because of the Utok factory, which was also the largest customer; after its collapse, the need for lime also dropped sharply. Today, lime, produced in the traditional way, is used in the restoration of castles and other listed buildings in order to preserve cultural heritage, so there are quite a few limestone quarries, and lime burning is becoming a real rarity.

In one way or another, the Kamfest festival always offers a view of the industrial heritage - either through the choice of location or through carefully selected program candies. The highlight of this year's program is definitely Dušan's exhibition. The series of photographs was created in 2011 and has not been exhibited until now. Opened to the public this year, it shows and acquaints visitors with a relatively unknown aspect of cultural heritage and reminds of past times.

Letnar's authorial poetics is solid and convincing. From an artistic and aesthetic point of view, the series of exhibited photographs continues and strengthens the latter. Black-and-white photographs seem to take us to some other times, which actually have not yet passed and coexist with the haste and digitality of the modern world. In this way, they evoke a sentimental, sometimes even nostalgic undertone and urge the visitor to become a part of the events that are so close, but at the same time so far away.

With the exhibition, Dušan continues his research into ethnological charms, which he records with great skill in his lens. The photographs document the course of the distilling process - from the preparation itself to the final product. Precisely because of the display of intangible and also industrial heritage, the series represents an important stone in the mosaic of the ethnographic legacy of the local environment. The author is an excellent observer of his surroundings, which can also be seen in the series; compositions and frames testify that he did not only want to capture the work process, but also its dynamics and in some places even the emotions of the participants. Thus, each photograph preserved the authenticity of the moment that Letnar pressed the trigger - that moment captured in fleetingness.

The exhibition emphasizes the need to remember in an excellent way. People have an immense desire to preserve intense memories that leave an indelible mark on their lives. Moments come our way that are worth preserving or at least recording. Dušan's APN series! it captures a rather fluid event, witnessed by fewer and fewer individuals, and thus preserves this memory for posterity.

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