The work source–archive B/FA–A(SA/EMS), created as part of the multi-year research project Source–Archive: Object in the Shape of a Bird and/or Fish, presents Petar Vranjković as an artist – researcher, archivist, and storyteller. The exhibition includes three tapestries and three smaller artefacts, the same ones represented on the tapestries, together with accompanying labels. Of the artefacts on view, one belongs to the artist’s private collection, while the other two have been loaned from the collection of the Ethnographic Museum Split.

The work takes as its starting point an artefact that came into the artist’s possession at an unknown time and under unclear circumstances. Over the years he developed a strong attachment to it, and this emotional bond became the impulse for the artistic process. The object itself is a hand-sized stone incised with shapes recognisable as an eye and a mouth. According to the artist, its form evokes a fish and/or a bird.

Three tapestries dominate the display, each presenting the exhibited artefacts through photographic representation. Historically, the tapestry has been recognised as a narrative medium, its figurative scenes having long played a role in shaping national histories. In this context, however, the artist takes on the role of narrator, constructing a story that reflects on archives from a minority standpoint. The tapestries thus act as pseudo-historical artefacts, mediating this speculative narrative.

The works on display are based on a digital database created by the artist, drawing on established archival practices – source–archive.com. The first entry Unknown, Object in the Shape of a Bird and/or Fish, Unknown, Unknown, Unknown, B/FS–A0001, is the artist’s own artefact, whose shape evokes a fish and/or a bird. Subsequent entries feature artefacts selected according to a similarity key: objects catalogued in various museum collections as either fish or birds. By building an archive around an artefact whose meaning is personal, emotional, and ephemeral, the artist critically examines the archive as a form of discursive power. As Michel Foucault noted in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969), archives shape what can be said, shown, and thought at a particular historical moment.

Drawing on post-Foucauldian theories, including insights from queer archival studies, the artist’s work is particularly informed by Ann Cvetkovich. In An Archive of Feelings (2003), she highlights the importance of affect and everyday life, suggesting that ephemeral objects can serve as legitimate elements of alternative archives, offering a way to question whose memories are preserved and whose are overlooked by institutional archives. While Cvetkovich focuses on trauma and queer-feminist cultural memories that traditional archives resist, Vranjković’s work moves beyond specific minority feelings, traumas and memories. His poetic practice channels these concerns into an affective engagement with a single ephemeral artefact, which serves as the starting point for a new artistic archive. The notion of the ephemeral as evidence further informs his approach to archival thinking. Although the work itself is not presented as a performance, the medium on which the concept is based, it metaphorically extends the ideas discussed by José Esteban Muñoz in Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts (1996). Muñoz shows how seemingly trivial, fleeting objects can serve as meaningful evidence of marginalised perspectives often excluded from traditional archival practices. As with Cvetkovich’s framework, this perspective frames Vranjković’s practice as a critical engagement with the archive as an institution, giving it both a poetic and a political dimension.

Furthermore, in this and other works, such as Cruising Utopia (2009), Muñoz highlights the utopian potential of the ephemeral, a quality reflected in Vranjković’s practice. By creating a digital database, a virtual archive of artefacts that remain forgotten and invisible in museum collections worldwide, and occasionally bringing them into gallery and museum spaces, as in this exhibition, the artist challenges the archive as a site of discursive power and opens it to speculative interpretations imbued with utopian potential.

Tonči Kranjčević Batalić

Petar Vranjković (b. 1997) is a transmedia artist and researcher who uses objects from archives, photography, video, printmaking, and design in his research– and artistic–based processes. He holds an MFA in Animation and New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He is interested in shaping memories and the idea of storytelling through artistic narratives. One of the central themes of his work is the intimate history of the individual, which is an interpretation of the heritage, tradition, and culture of a community and time.
Vranjković’s recent solo exhibitions took place at Kamba, Zagreb (2024); Collection of Vjenceslav Richter and Nada Kareš Richter, Zagreb (2023); Miroslav Kraljević Gallery, Zagreb (2022). His work was included in the 42nd Split Salon and 36th Zagreb Youth Salon.