ELENA
ŠTROK
A storyteller’s life is
an excitement indeed:
All tales of unknown
I hope once to read
UPCOMING
2026
Rijksakademie (NL)
Tech Fellow | Print workshop
artist residency
Spring 2026
Gallery VN (CRO)
Baby Universe
Solo show
TIME TRAVEL EXPERIMENT NUMBER ONE
acrylic glass objects, text, storytelling
held at Future Traditions: Student Biennale 2019, Riga, Artist residency Plemenitaš, Croatia & REFRESH+ Croatia at Gallery Prostor, Split
2019/2021
The way humans perceive reality is through stories. We form an idea based on belief, and depending on the number of individuals that choose to engage in the given idea, it makes it more or less part of the collective reality. This is how traditions were and still are born, the only difference being the context of reality and the system of values in a given time and space.
For a moment, we will put ourselves in the mindset of scientists in a future far, far away. Those scientists find an archeological site that is for them a past, but from our current point of view also a future, alebit a closer one. The workshop starts with this thesis and presents to the participants the 14 symbols that are found in the before mentioned archeological site. All the symbols are carved in acrylic glass, in pieces 4x4 cm.
Every participant takes one or two symbols and creates the story around the idea he/she thinks it used to represent for the civilization that used to inhabit the area. Further on, all the participants create one coherent theory, following which a model for this story is built. Are we able to create the future we desire to be a part of, by recreating an idea of the past from a future far away? This is the main thought investigated.