 Jan 29 2025 - Apr 6 2025

 Ljubljana

An exhibition by Danish-Scottish artist Shona Illingworth at Ljubljana's Cukrarna Gallery explores the impact of the accelerating military, industrial and corporate transformations of airspace and outer space, environmental degradation and their implications for human rights.

First put together in 2021, the video and sound installation dubbed Topologies of Air draws inspiration from the remote areas of the Scottish Highlands where the artist grew up.

The exhibition delves into issues such as the increasing military and corporate exploitation of airspace and outer space, increasingly pervasive and weaponised surveillance, nuclear threat and environmental degradation.

It involves multiple perspectives, from toxic microparticles of enormous dust storms in the Gulf and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to the rapid expansion of the use of drones and the use of artificial intelligence in warfare.

Shot in different locations around the world, the video also features the Airspace Tribunal, a people's tribunal founded by Illingworth and human rights lawyer Nick Grief in 2018.

The tribunal is examining the case for and against the recognition of a new human right to protect the freedom to live without physical or psychological threat from above.

A discussion on the proposed new human right and the exhibition will take place in Cukrarna 30 January featuring several panellists, including the artist herself, prominent Slovenian philosopher and sociologist Renata Salecl, who is part of the Airspace Tribunal, and international law expert Vasilka Sancin, who was just appointed the new Slovenian judge at the European Court of Human Rights.

For details, click here.