Paprat Kolektiv is a Croatia-based collective whose work spans the fields of green art, arhitecture, design and activism. We organise green events, pop-up workshops and create green installations. We focus on projects that explore the connection between humanity and nature.
Iva Peručić is a graduate architect working in the sphere of sustainable building, green design and permaculture. After working in architectural offices in the Netherlands and Croatia, she founded her own studio. In her work, she amplifies the simplicity of human coexistence with nature — stop, feel, play, be in the now.
Maja Subotić Šušak is a botanist at heart, a graduate designer by profession. Gourmand. Travel addict. Director of the Living Atelier Gallery DK. She has worked with many local and international agencies, festivals and associations, both as a creative director and project coordinator.
We have been collaborating since 2017, so in 2020, we united under the name Paprat Kolektiv and started to function as an artistic duo.
Areas of interest: Human relation to nature, natural materials, public space, evolution
MagiC Carpets project
SLOW JOURNEY – FOR A CRITIC OF THE URGENCY
Title: Solution Ø
Past projects you are proud of:
UNPREDICTABILITY, GREEN RATKAJ, ALL THINGS CLITORIS, SHORT ON TIME
Installation
The work symbolizes simultaneous predictability and unpredictability of each process. By accepting these characteristics as equivalent, we allow manifestations of both. We take responsibility for what is predictable, and at the same time, release the need to control what is unpredictable. In the zone of uncertainty, the possibility for immediate reaction, improvisation and free action open up. We find peace and inspiration in that realization, we balance, we walk on the edge between the opposing duals, we take the best from each side — we create a new reality.
GREEN RATKAJ
Installation, event
This installation of an utopian sustainable city, made for the Design District Zagreb Festival, addresses the issues of human-oriented urbanism, urban gardening, recycling and sustainability. Mobile, modular urban vegetable gardens are presented as an example of locally grown food and an introduction of utilitarian greenery into the urban setting. A pop-up forest is proposed as a new form of spatial planning, pointing to the importance of preserving the forest ecosystem and its benefits to the urban environment. A fun and relaxed atmosphere is achieved by removing all traffic, and setting ping-pong tables and lounge elements instead—because sustainability is anything but boring.
ALL THINGS CLITORIS
Installation, sculpture
The clitoris is the most optimistic aspect of the female body, as it is the only organ the function of which is solely pleasure. The history of dealing with the clitoris is marked by censorship and misinformation—Queer Zagreb, therefore, delivers a series of programs dedicated to raising the visibility of the complete clitoral anatomy. As part of the festival program, the clitoris also enters the public space, with a large installation of a flowering clitoris in one of Zagreb’s squares.
SHORT ON TIME
Installation
Numerous external stimuli are trying to catch your attention at all times. They are constantly changing, dancing and vibrating. And as you shift focus from one to the other, you often forget to bring it back to where it came from. You can’t really relax and you feel like you’re just spending your days in a vague state of tension. You look at the people around you. They may feel the same, but sometimes it’s hard for you to connect with them. Often even harder to connect with yourself. You know you’ve always been better off in nature, among greenery, in a magical land with no deadlines and no likes. You always plan to leave… but you actually rarely find the time. Come on in. Sit down. Give yourself a moment. Feel that you exist now and here. There is nothing to miss. Only when you stop can you catch what you are actually missing—time.
What inspires you as an artists? Interrelations of the natural world, evolution, the undiscovered, emotion.
What do you think is the purpose of art? Soul food, activism, pushing boundaries, questioning, creation, growth.
Contact information
www.papratkolektiv.com | Email: [email protected]