"The solo exhibition by Iva Suhadolnik Gregorin features a photographic series that critically – yet above all, from a first-person perspective – explores the deeply felt and increasingly amplified need for a time in which nothing is demanded of her (or of other artists). Through the continuity of her practice and a series of striking (self-portrait) images captured along the coast, the artist focuses on her personal experience of rejecting work and opens a space for reflection on the right to be idle. This time, the narrowed thematic focus is directly tied to the educational system – more precisely, to a master’s programme at an arts academy.

The theoretical foundations of the artist's years-long exploration of contemporary attitudes toward (non)work and reflections on the various dimensions of free time align with numerous sociological texts by activist authors who critique the fetishisation of labour, while prioritising rest and the leisure of obligation-free existence. The valuable time spent at the academy, which ought to be unburdened, flexible, and above all dedicated to the exploration of one’s own creative practice, is all too often saturated with obligations that externally project a false sense of progress, exaggerated diligence, and impractical (hyper)productivity. This model of constant work accumulation and coerced self-sacrifice begins within the education system and continues even more aggressively into the adult lives of individuals, who ultimately form a work-obsessed society.

In her work, the artist confronts the fact that she simply lacks quality time for independent and unburdened development of her own self. The reason lies in the ill-adapted curriculum of the master’s programme in photography: mandatory filler subjects, the absence of dedicated studio work, the inevitability of group work, and the endless stream of homework assignments. The fact that the academy, allegedly the most open-minded incubator of uncompromising freedom and bold creativity, does not grant students enough time for aimless wandering or the space for drawn-out contemplation and unburdened daydreaming results in a dissatisfied student body lacking autonomy, unable to see any meaningful purpose or potential for wasting time in the second-cycle programme. The artist understands and experiences the active rejection of work without the internalised guilt we have been taught to feel as an act of resistance and a long-awaited liberation. She also challenges the stereotypical discrepancy between legitimate hard work, which demands suffering, and romanticised artistic creation, which is enjoyed for the soul, while playing with the etymology of dominant terminology that underpins the distorted understanding of a workaholic culture. The exhibition title Nothing Matters More than Entering the Water, on the other hand, evokes the now recognisable iconography of the artist’s practice, where vacationing, a love of water, the sea, swimming, and the precious enjoyment of obligation-free time take centre stage."

Curatorial text written by Maša Žekš.