OFF Screen Paris
2025
RAVNIKAR
www.ravnikar.org
www.ravnikargallery.space
Neža Knez
Other Sight
For the 4th edition of OFF Screen in Paris, we propose Other Sight, an expanded installation by Zagreb-based Slovenian artist Neža Knez. The work explores the act of image-making through a deliberate withdrawal from visual perception. Developed during a radical, ten-day period of self-imposed blindness, the project is not a depiction of blindness, but an exploration of how perception transforms when one consciously steps away from sight.
Knez was first drawn to this theme through close contact with blind individuals and the realization of how layered and sensorial their experience of the world is. An earlier work (2014) on this topic involved translating textual graffiti from the streets of Ljubljana into Braille—messages that were emotional, provocative, or humorous rather than purely informative. This gesture aimed to bring the everyday absurdities and emotional textures of public space into tactile and auditory form, acknowledging that all people—sighted or blind—have a right to life’s full, colorful spectrum.
Other Sight ontinues this inquiry (2015–ongoing). For ten days, Knez chose to live without vision—not in isolation, but fully embedded in her daily life: attending lectures, social events, walking through the city with friends. This was not a simulation of blindness, but a personal experiment in perception, developed in close dialogue with members of the blind community and medical professionals who offered guidance on navigation, Braille, and sound.
At the heart of the installation are three sculptural busts, each created through a distinct sensory modality: memory, touch, and sound. These portraits are based on encounters with strangers the artist had never previously met—formed through non-visual perception during her period of blindness. One bust was shaped purely from a verbal description, another through tactile exploration, and a third through attentive listening.
This series of sculptures has never been shown before—OFF Screen Paris will mark its premiere. The installation also features a selection of drawings made during the same period, created in nightly sessions where a collaborator translated live model poses into spoken descriptions, guiding Knez’s hand as she drew. These sketches reflect a translation of language into image, gesture into form.
In addition to the sculptures and drawings, the installation includes audio diaries, voice recordings, and written reflections, forming a living archive of the process. To accompany the presentation, an artist’s book will be published—documenting the diary of her journey and offering an expanded context for the work.
Initiative Other Sight is not a spectacle or a performance of deprivation, but a study in curiosity, humility, and the possibility of encountering the world differently. It offers a poetic, reflective space—one that challenges the primacy of vision and opens new pathways for making and understanding images.
Neža Knez
Born in 1990, Ljubljana, SI
Lives and works between Ljubljana, SI, and Zagreb, HR
Neža Knez is an intermedia artist based between Ljubljana and Zagreb. Her work explores hybrid formats that integrate the discursive and poetic principles of artistic practice, viewing them as inseparable from daily life. She is interested in the relationships and diffractions that occur in the structuring of forms, whether they involve moving images, sound, language, or mixed media installations. She focuses on minor, invisible, and fragile processes within and through media and materials, which she shares and attempts to understand with her dog, Niki.
She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, where she received the Prešeren Award (2015) and graduated with the highest distinction, Summa Cum Laude, for her master’s degree (2017). In 2018, she was awarded the OHO Group Award for young artists in Slovenia. That same year, she undertook a two-year residency at the Creative Centre Swiss House (International Centre of Graphic Art) in Ljubljana. Along with three other artists, she received the European Mobile Award I-Portunus (2019). In 2020, she partially relocated to Zagreb. Between 2022 and 2024, she completed informal education at Restart (Documentary Film School, 2021) and Baltic Analog Film School (Experimental Analog Film, 2024).
Neža actively collaborates with artists from Slovenia and abroad on artistic research, exhibitions, and film productions. She conducts workshops and regularly works with the film collective Studio Pangolin and Klub Vizija. Once a year, she also leads a workshop for students in the New Media Department at the Academy in Zagreb. Currently, she is assisting on the film Vremenoplovke by Nicole Hewitt and is one of the mentors for the GRRRL Power film workshops led by artist and director Vida Guzmić. Knez also leads analog film workshops as part of the V-F-X Festival Ljubljana (International Festival of Experimental Audiovisual Practices) and as a member of Klub Vizija Analog Lab. Currently, she collaborates and works on her own projects with Jasen Mullhausen, Vida Guzmić, Tin Dožić, Tatiana Kocmur, and others. She is currently finalizing her experimental film The Same Sweat Still Flows through the Same Pores, produced by Studio Pangolin and supported by HAVC (Croatian Audiovisual Centre).
Her work has been presented locally and internationally, including at galleries such as Tobačna 001, Škuc, P74, Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana, City Gallery Ljubljana, Center for Contemporary Arts Celje, International Centre of Graphic Art Ljubljana, Kibla Maribor, Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art Rijeka, Art Quarter Budapest, Gallery Mohsen Tehran, Gallery Nova Zagreb, Gallery GMK Zagreb, MLZ Art Dep Trieste, and Gallery Kunsthalle Graz. Her video works are also included in the DIVA archive.
Contact
RAVNIKAR©2024
Instagram: @ravnikargalleryspace
Linktree, Linkedin, Threads