The Nina Nano project is a textile portrait of the author, consisting of seventy textile objects in the form of small women’s dresses. From textile waste collected during inventory, the author created miniature replicas of her own dresses, which she also sewed herself. The miniatures serve as triggers of memories of sewing work, understood as children play. Nina Nano confronts the adult and child worlds. As curator Iza Pevec wrote for the exhibition at the City Hall in Ljubljana, the transfer to a miniature format evokes multiple thoughts, associations, and perceptions. Through the project, the author shows that the image of ourselves that we want to create is no more real than our childhood notions of adulthood. The creations are a mixture of different approaches, including extreme minimalism in sewing that defies consumerism and its dictate of constantly buying cheap clothes. They are accompanied by a video that shows the dressing of a tailor’s mannequin.
Marija Mojca Pungerčar graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 1989 and obtained her master’s degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in the USA in 2001 with the support of a Fulbright scholarship. From 1984 to 1985, she worked as a fashion designer, and in 1999, she was a visiting student at the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna. From 1983 to 1989, she was a member of the alternative art group Linije sile, where she created costume design for the cult performance Krst pod Triglavom. Since 1991, she has been working as a freelance artist in the field of culture. Since 2017, she has been a guest artist at the MGLC Švicarija studio. She has exhibited in numerous exhibitions both domestically and internationally. Her work intersects socially critical projects and the exploration of the individual’s intimate roles within a community.
Photo: Maša Pirc / BIEN 2023
