We kindly invite you to the artist talk with Armina Pilav, PhD, and Damir Ugljen, which will take place on Thursday, 21 April 2022, at 7 p.m. at MMC KIBLA. Armina and Damir, who operate in the scope of the transmedia research practice Un-war Space Lab, are current RUK residents at KIBLA2LAB.

Within their residency, they are developing the project Drava Reflections, researching the Drava River and the implications of exploiting this body of water through relational ecologies and augmented reality technologies. This project is part of the wider program Toxic Lands. They will present Un-war Space Lab, a cross-media research-based practice on material transformations of rivers, land, architecture, and the interspecies society during and after the war.

Un-war Space Lab is a cross-media research-based practice on material transformations of rivers, land, architecture, and the interspecies society during and after the war; it is led by Armina Pilav, feminist, architect, and researcher in ecologies of war destruction. It works as a fluid collective of researchers and practitioners across the disciplines of landscape architecture, film, archaeology, visual arts, and environmental humanities, to mention a few. Plurennial research on the Neretva River and its inter-species ecologies is developed in collaboration with Damir Ugljen – an archaeologist and independent researcher who explores the cultural significance and ecological consequences of the material transformation of landscapes, with a particular focus on adaptive responses of non-human and human subjects to newly formed conditions.

Armina Pilav is a feminist, architect, lecturer at the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, and founder of Un-War Space Lab. Armina uses cross-media tools, psychospatiality, and radical observations to expose ecologies of transformations of rivers, lands, and related natural forms, architectures, and society, as illustrated in the project Toxic Lands.

Damir Ugljen is an archaeologist and independent researcher interested in the fields of archaeology, social anthropology, and environmental inquiry. He explores the cultural significance and ecological consequences of the material transformation of landscapes, with a particular focus on adaptive responses of non-human and human subjects to newly formed conditions.