Lena Kocutar
Höfn_Maribor
Lena Kocutar
Höfn_Maribor
In two million years, since the earliest human migration and expansions, the species has colonised the vast majority of the planet; it is the most invasive of the estimated 8 million animal and plant species currently in existence. Höfn, Iceland (64.2497° N, 15.2020° W) translates to harbour; the growth of the town in the 20th century was fuelled by the fishing industry which remains the main economic activity to this day; Skinney-Thinganes, the major fishing and fish processing company located in Höfn is one of the largest in the country. The lobster, a significant part of the local catch, is central to the town’s character celebrating the ‘Lobster festival’ each summer. In the 19th century, after the railway connecting Vienna to Trieste, passing though Maribor, Slovenia (46.5547° N, 15.6459° E) was built, the industry began to develop and expand, inaugurating the first stage of industrialisation. The industrial production was sustained by cheap human labour and hydroelectricity. Occupied by the Nazis who have employed and expanded on the existing means of production during the war, Maribor suffered from Allied bombing raids, targeting the very means of production together with the railway bridge. It was the most war-damaged city in the present day Slovenia. After the war, nationalisation of the industrial production facilitated the city’s recovery. With the death of Yugoslavia, Maribor has gradually transformed into what is now known as a post-industrial city. Both the fishing industry of Höfn and the industrial production of Maribor have generated architectural spaces and surfaces of similar materiality and aesthetics that bridge the 22° difference in longitude and their cultural specificities, generating a type of transnational industrial habitat.
Lena Kocutar
Lena Kocutar, born in Maribor, Slovenia currently lives in Berlin where she studies Art and Aesthetics at Bard College Berlin. Her work is mostly research-based, exploring different media including video, photography, and performance.