HIGH WATERS (2023-2024), A COLLABORATIVE MULTIMEDIA PROJECT BY LEA JAZBEC & BRANE ŠIRCA

Within High Waters, the artists navigate multiple formats—bridging analog and digital—to give new meaning to found material. The project originates from water-damaged photographic slides recovered after the flood, containing realistic imagery of diverse subjects: landscapes, urban scenes, people, flowers, travels, and social gatherings captured in the 1960s and 1970s. These fragile records undergo digitization through scanning, photography, video, animation, and installation. Further, they are deliberately exposed to water, accelerating their decomposition and reshaping them into evocative abstract forms with striking painterly and graphic qualities.

Through this controlled process of erosion and reinvention, the artists actively manipulate, dismantle, and document the evolving imagery, creating a dialogue between destruction and artistic renewal.

"We reflect on contemporary environmental ethics at a time when humanity has reached the limits of sustainable behavior toward our shared habitat. Our work questions the possibilities for greater cooperation, mutual aid, and coexistence in the future. By engaging with these decaying images, we explore the growing tensions between human impact on nature and our relationships with one another. This project allows us to poetically express the intricate connections between cause and effect—between what is lost and what can be reimagined."