Manuela Pauk

Little things that were irrelevant before became significant in their moral meaning – hanging out with people became a public concern and a big deal.

I created my biggest and most complicated sculpture – a giant terracotta sculpture of a tortoise Adwaita, oldest tortoise that had ever lived, just at the start of pandemic in Croatia – during our lockdown in May. Sourcing materials was a problem, when I called my usual distributor of clay the week before, annoyed, they informed me that distribution for non essential items had stoped and that they don’t have any clay in the warehouse. But I was very lucky – I got connected to a clay “dealer” who brought with a van some Hungarian clay he had – it was also way cheaper than the Italian clay that I usually used.

I was also lucky to have rented an atelier space – even though it was very far from the place I had lived in, and so I travelled almost every day with a bike for around an hour – some days I choose to stay at home and draw my “pattern for the tortoise”, sketches of reliefs of historical events my tortoise will feature. I would work in my studio space for a whole day, alone and undisturbed. In the evening I would go home and cook a meal of the day.

In a way, it was the time I felt very serene and happy to be able to focus on my work. But, on the other hand, I disliked the pressure of the time and uncertainty.

Normal things were forbidden.

I felt fear of the effects of the virus and was a bit irrational about that. I started missing my friends and talking to them, exhibition opening, cafes in which I could drink quality esspresso, and clubs, because dance is fun and nights like that are great to deal with everyday anxiety and stress. At one point Zagreb got hit by an earthquake – this was the first earthquake I had ever experienced: I felt fear – Zagreb got hit quite badly, and since my atelier was in the part that felt some effects, I was afraid that my works got broken – it was a really bad feeling, like something sting me. I was mad at myself because I didn’t wrap all of my works in bubble wrap, or something like that. Again, I was lucky – my works survived. Only two ceramic sculptures I made broke – cow udder sculpture, and one of my african snails. But, I fixed both sculptures and continued to work.

2020 was my most productive year so far, I had three solo shows, and was part of quite a few group shows.

Adwaita is a sculpture made from terracotta, that was part of my exhibition Old world which focused on the Old world (Asia, Africa and Europe) and in which I wanted to evoke the idea of time before discovery of new continents, and before science was on the level it is now. Adwaita is a pseudohistorical sculpture that tries to remind a viewer of times of antiquity. In a way it celebrates a culture that no longer exists, it’s shape is cullmination of my ideas about the art of the past and it is a derivate of art of the past.

The subject of the sculpture is a tortoise that did not live that far in the past – presumably Adwaita was born in 1750 and lived in Kalkuta zoo until 2006. If it was true, Adwaita’s life would have been the longest life span of any being recorded by humans. Humans had always craved imortality. Since we are not certain about the date of Adwaita’s life, the story is somewhere beetween myth and reality. That is why, on the 13 parts of Adwaita’s shell I put events of great historical importance that happend beetween in his life span- beetween 1750 and 2006 on the territory of Europe, Asia and Africa. It was a time of many wars and great changes that contributed to the society we are living in today.

I choose to show events that I concluded had some importance, and some of these are: Coronation of Napoleon I, Women’s right to wote, Takeover of the Bastille, Cultural war in China, Cold war (Soviet dogs in universe), Colonization of Japan, Gandhi’s peaceful protest etc.. All of these events evoke an opinion in anyone who has even a fleeting interest in history and all of them can be interpreted in many ways. They also contributed to major changes in wide circles of society.

Our reading of each of these events shapes who we are as people, what we choose to belive becomes our identity. They are often mythologized and taught like stories of heroes, villans and great changes.

Another reason I choose to put all of these events on a tortoise shell is a simple irony – we humans want to live forever (256 years is forever in human generations, names of even family are often lost after 2-3 generations), conquer the world and we, of course see everything through our eyes. But, a tortoise lives longer than a human, and I wonder, what would a tortoise think if he had seen all of the events that took place during his life?