Marija Kladarin / Childhood in Fragments
Solo exhibition
FROM THE PREFACE OF THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition "Childhood in Fragments" opens up space for an introspective encounter with one's own memories, those that often remain hidden in the cracks of time. It does not seek a simple reconstruction of the past, but builds an atmosphere of nostalgia in which the feelings, smells and sounds of childhood are transformed into new visual and tactile units. In doing so, the fragment becomes a key motif, a symbol of memory, but also a sign of absence. It reminds us of the elusiveness of time and the fact that every reminiscence carries with it emptiness, spaces of silence that speak as strongly as what we remember.
The process of creation is based on play both in the thematic layer and in the way it is designed. By balancing control and spontaneity, gesture and material are allowed to open up space for unexpected results. It is in this dynamic that the connection with childhood is born, a period when imagination is inseparable from creation, and the world is experienced through the body, senses and constant exploration. The exhibition opens up the possibility of interdisciplinary reading. It can be observed in the context of the study of nostalgia and collective memory, through the prism of the anthropology of play, but also within the framework of contemporary artistic practices that explore tactility, materiality and interactivity. The works therefore do not belong exclusively to the field of individual memory, but articulate universal patterns of emotional experience, making the work a communication bridge between the private and the public, past and present. These works invite us to slow down and be present, to reconnect with sensory experience that is often suppressed in the contemporary, digitized world. In a time marked by a fast-paced everyday life and a constant flow of virtual information, the exhibition emphasizes the importance of the material, physical and emotional in the process of memory construction.
Ultimately, "Childhood in Fragments" affirms play as an aesthetic and epistemological category, while the act of remembering becomes a productive strategy for shaping identity and reinterpreting the past. Art here proves to be a key space in which memories are not only stored, but also transformed, shared and revived – not to reproduce the past, but to create new narratives from it, new spaces of connection and understanding.
Marija Kladarin
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Marija Kladarin was born in 1999 in Zagreb. In 2018, she graduated from the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb and enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Zagreb, Department of Education. She graduated in 2023 in the class of dr. art. Ivan Fijolić, obtaining the title of Master of Fine Arts Education.
She won the Rector's Award in the academic year 2020/2021 for the group exhibition "Art Against Fear", and in addition, she participates in the group exhibitions "Banija Literary Anthology – Poetry in Picture" in 2022, "International Exhibition of Miniatures 3rd Pocket Edition" in 2023 in Dubrovnik and "Bitter Image" of the Artoratorij Association in 2024 in Vrbovec. In 2025, she exhibited her first solo exhibition "Memories" at the Crta Gallery
You can see the exhibition in the Šira Gallery during the working hours of the Gallery (Mon-Fri: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., 6-8 p.m., Saturdays: 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.) until 13.09.2025.
The exhibition was realized with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City Office for Culture and Civil Society of the City of Zagreb.