Maja Bojanić in Brin Žvan: Struggles Beyond Repair
Struggles Beyond Repair traces the events behind the scenes of the Institute for Mold Preservation. Since its founding in 2022, this fictional non-governmental organisation has been the central research body for the study of mold in public institutions, promoting a sustainable post-restoration model and pioneering the development of alternative practices in the fields of natural and cultural heritage. In 2025, the Institute faces the prospect of collapse due to numerous crises – material, ethical and administrative – that could disrupt its further operation.
In the extended video game Struggles Beyond Repair, we find ourselves in the Institute’s desolate and isolated facilities at the close of a seemingly ordinary workday, where every inch of the space adapts to the work, research and development taking place inside. But as we dig through the files and drawers, we eventually reach the Institute’s musty underbelly, where the air of unsolvable problems and unbearable conditions is sapping away the very subject of research that the Institute was founded upon: the mold Stachybotrys chartarum.
While the ideational and material foundations of the Institute have clearly begun to crumble, the organisation resists its own collapse through the ritualistic maintenance of working procedures that are permanently geared towards seeking out solutions to postpone the confrontation with collapse. As a speculative condensation of late capitalist institutional mechanisms facing a looming climate future, the Institute functions as an apparatus which, through its need for care and management, sustains its own existence before all else.
While playing, we find it very hard to escape the feeling that we ourselves have become part of the living and peripheral supporting structures that must continue to function and produce the appearance of smooth operations, upholding the Institute even after the exhaustion of its mission. The vital resistance thereby emerges on a molecular scale, permeating the ruptures of a system in decline, as the mold, which was once the subject of research, ultimately enacts its model of existence: sustainability as a gradual and yet inevitable perseverance of decay ...
Opening:
- Tuesday, 25 November, 19.00
Guided tour of the exhibition:
- Wednesday, 3 December, 16.00
- Wednesday, 10 December, 16.00
Maja Bojanić
Maja Bojanić (1997) works in the field of visual arts. She creates installations, videos and texts which explore whose narratives remain, fade and disappear, and the forces that influence their (in)visibility. She completed her BA in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (2020) and her MA at the TransArts department of the University of Applied Arts in Vienna (2025). Her work has been shown internationally, including at Out of the Blue Cinema (2025, Paris), Mumok Cinema (2025, Vienna), bb15 (2025, Linz), Škuc Gallery (2024, Ljubljana), VBKÖ (2024, Vienna), Pogon (2024, Zagreb), MGNG (2024, Nova Gorica), aqb (2022, Budapest), and P74 Gallery (Ljubljana), where she was twice nominated for the OHO Group Award (2023, 2024).
Brin Žvan
Brin Žvan (1998) is a media artist and game designer. With an MA in Game Design from the IT University of Copenhagen (2023), they create games that use either too many or too few buttons. Their latest work is the game ONE BTN BOSSES (2024), in which the player battles her bosses with just one button. The game has been awarded multiple times and has been extremely well received by critics, boasting a score of 87/100 on Metacritic. Before that, they created Presenter Slides (2022), a bureaucratic adventure that received a nomination for the Best Student Game at the Independent Games Festival (2023, San Francisco). When Brin is not making games, they teach others how to. And when not teaching, they take care of plants or cook with friends.
