COSMOS Collective








Josip Zanki

Palimpsest Museum of Infinite History - Excerpts from the catalog (2019), a collaboration between Josip Zanki and Falk Messerschmidt, color pigment prints



The photographic work of Falk Messerschmidt and Josip Zanki moves between fact and "fake". The two artists are showing the museum catalog of the "Palimpsest Museum for Infinite History". It reinterprets objects and spatial ensembles from the lttingen museum: they tell an alternative story that meanders between documentation, deconstruction and fiction. The duo's artistic and scientific interests led to the fragments of monastic life in lttingen being given a new meaning and to ironically questioning the evidential value of historical traces. The most important pages of the catalog are in the exhibition room and are intended to be taken away.
Die fotografische Arbeit von Falk Messerschmidt und Josip Zanki bewegt sich zwischen Fakt und "Fake". Die beiden Künstler zeigen den Museumskatalog des "Palimpsest Museum für unendliche Geschichte". Darin werden Objekte und Raumensembles aus dem lttinger Museum umgedeutet: Sie erzählen eine alternative Geschichte, die zwischen Dokumentation, Dekonstruktion und Fiktion mäandert. Die künstlerisch-wissenschaftlichen Interessen des Duos führten dazu, den Fragmenten des monastischen Lebens in lttingen eine neue Bedeutung zu verleihen und die Beweiskraft von historischen Spuren ironisch zu hinterfragen. Die wichtigsten Seiten des Kataloges liegen im Ausstellungsraum auf und sind zum Mitnehmen gedacht.


Voice of the Silence: Blavatsky Mantra (2017), Workshop held at the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá


Project Voice of the Silence: Blavatsky Mantra is based on workshops, lectures and artistic interdisciplinary research. My intention is to introduce to the participants of the project (student of the University, local artist, volunteers) relation between scared words (mantras and symbolic code of illumination and initiation in Rituals of passage) and image in Tibetan Buddhist paintings. Workshop practical work will include drawing of Buddha head and body based on ancient sutras. Through such experience participants will be involved into meditative state of conscious; in which according to Tibetan Buddhism Buddha’s or divine energy (Tibetan lha) embodied in created image or physical space of participants converting the words into number and number into the image. Theoretical frame (lectures) will be created on relation between image as symbolical form, image as reinterpretation and image as embodiment of objective reality. Interdisciplinary research will be based on collection of scared and a secret word (mantras) which opens alter state of conscious and Trans. In Colombia I will be focused on pre-Colombian religious heritage, catholic eclecticisms and virtual reality shamanism. Together with the participants I will collect mantras in the various spaces working on three models: whispering on ear (as in Free Masonry Three Degree Ritual, and other esoteric groups practice), sending it via e mail (virtual reality) and with writing mantras on praying flags (symbolism of Kailas and universal Holy Mountains), papers and stones. All documentations of this project will be presented and displayed at the end of residence in Bogotá.
COSMOS Collective / Colombia, Croatia & Switzerland

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