Matej Bizovičar
Refufish

Große Lauben- Portici maggiori

Matej Bizovičar is a visual artist from Ljubljana who has a background in painting, but has also created sculptures, installations and mosaics over the years. In recent years in particular, the artist has focussed on the interaction between sculpture and light.

As part of the Water Light Festival 2024, Bizovičar is showing the work Refufish (originally "Ribogunci"), which is a play on the words "refugee" and "fish". The colourful school of fish made of polyurethane foam symbolically represents the ongoing refugee crisis, even if at first glance the colourful animals with their freedom of movement in the seven seas emphasise the exact opposite.

However, the focus is on the unusual shapes and colours of the floating sea creatures. The artist uses these to emphasise their otherness and strangeness. The fish are reminiscent of creatures and images from sci-fi films, sprawling organisms or viruses escaping from a laboratory. All of these associations are intended to encourage viewers to reflect on the age-old human fear of otherness. The work was first shown in 2018 as part of the Svetlobna gverila light festival in Ljubljana and has grown steadily since then.

Commissioned by Svetlobna gverila/Forum Ljubljana & LUV Fest/Turizem Ljubljana, 2018-2023