Ana Čavić

A Thread Without End

15. 10. 2026–8. 2. 2027

Grad Tivoli

A thread without end is an ever-evolving story that unravels like an endless thread, which has so far unfolded across eight acts. The mythopoetic creation story revolves around two archetypal characters – a woman and an anthropomorphic fox – tracing their evolving relationship across amorphous space and time, a shapely darkness, out of which a symbolically rich story world progressively emerges. With every successive act, the audience learns more about the characters while gradually discovering the contours of the fantastical story world in which their tale of entangled fates takes place.

Ana Čavić

The exhibition A thread without end invites us into the poetic and visual world that Ana Čavić has gradually created and refined over the past decade. Conceived as an ever-evolving performance storytelling cycle, the work brings to life its own mythology, through which the artist constructs a story about the magic of ceaseless searching, which is life itself.

Based on two archetypal characters – a woman and an anthropomorphic fox – the artist has created a unique narrative universe inspired by diverse traditions and cultures. This universe orms a symbolic constellation that unfolds across the eight acts conceived to date. In this world, the thread also serves as the guiding principle: following the thread means travelling through time, connecting fragments, recalling what has been forgotten and leaving room for the story to continue.

Ana Čavić draws on the tradition of cantastoria, in which a travelling storyteller uses images, objects or gestures to better illustrate a story, and acts as a mediator between the narrative and our memory. Her work unfolds through a sequence of transitions: from poetic narrative to image, from image to object, from object to gesture and from gesture to performance, ultimately concluding in the experience of the observer who decides to surrender to its appeal. And it is precisely in this encounter that the work comes to life and acquires its meaning.

Ana Čavić’s artistic practice is characterised by the fragility of the materials she uses – paper, clay, wool and thread – and the visual richness of its narrative dimension. Their intertwinement gives rise to an atmosphere in which the tangible meets the imaginary, and every element of the narrative becomes a carrier of symbolic meaning. Her works begin with a poetic concept, which is then developed and shaped through performative language. Intonation, rhythm, silence, facial expressions, gestures, movement, the performer’s presence, the space and, ultimately, the audience’s response all contribute to a shared experience. The story becomes a scene: objects acquire symbolic value, actions articulate the narrative, while space and time establish the experiential framework. The performance is not a semantically self-contained unit but consistently redirects meanings towards allusions, metaphors and that which remains open to interpretation.

In keeping with the nature of Ana Čavić’s artistic practice, the exhibition is conceived as a temporary and dynamic environment, reminiscent of the backstage of a distant theatre or the compartments of a travelling storyteller’s suitcase. The exhibition does not attempt to recreate a closed setting; rather, it reveals both the objects and the materials that support the narrative, as well as the diverse voices, forms of knowledge and ways of understanding the world that bring it to life.

Through the power of imagination, we enter the stories of others and can recognise ourselves both in what we have in common and in what sets us apart. This is an exercise in openness, for it requires our willingness to question our own beliefs. If stories once primarily opened doors to other worlds for us, today they may also help us to look at the reality in which we live differently and ask ourselves which stories we wish to preserve, which we need to transform and which we would still like to tell. Without losing the thread.

Selected excerpts from the curatorial text by Yasmín Martín Vodopivec.

Ana Čavić (1979) is a performance storyteller, visual artist, poet and researcher of historical performance storytelling traditions. She has lived and worked in Ljubljana since 2019.

Her diverse multimedia art practice is unified by her sustained engagement with storytelling at the intersection of visual and performing arts and literature. Alongside her theatrical storytelling performances, she creates works on paper, collages, papercuts, drawings, ceramics, embroideries, carpets, cut-up poetry, digital poetry and artist’s publications.

Between 2001 and 2019, she lived and worked primarily in London. In 2008, she graduated in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art (University College London) and subsequently began working as an artist, performer and poet and became a member of the artistic duo Ladies of the Press. Her long-standing professional and artistic research into the cantastoria storytelling tradition culminated in a PhD in Fine Art from the Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton), which she completed in 2024.

She has participated in group exhibitions in Slovenia and internationally, including the 6th International Triennial of Ceramics UNICUM 2026 (National Museum of Slovenia, Ljubljana, 2026); Grenzen (Kunstraum Pro Arte, Hallein, 2025); Climate Action Through Poetry and Photography (Center for the Promotion of Science, Belgrade, 2025); Against the Stream of Time, U3 – Triennial of Contemporary Art (Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, 2024); Eyes in the Stone, EKO 9 – Triennial of Art and Environment (Maribor Art Gallery, Maribor, 2024; Budapest Gallery, Budapest, 2025); A Sea of Myths (Spot Gallery, Office for Photography, Zagreb, 2024); Natural Faith (International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 2022–23); Trust & Risk, Pixxelpoint (Nova Gorica, 2022) and Art for World Peace (Hartley Library, University of Southampton, 2022).

She has exhibited and performed individual acts (I–IV) from the cycle A thread without end at Dom omladine (Youth Center) in Belgrade (2026), Plečnik Auditorium (2024), Glej Theatre in Ljubljana (2023), Five Years Gallery in London (2023) and DUM project space in Ljubljana (2021). She held a solo exhibition at the Glass Atrium in Ljubljana, presenting her work Garden of Lost Things (2023). In collaboration with Sally Morfill, she exhibited the work Rules that order the reading of clouds (2020) at the Intermission Museum of Art, Stand4 Gallery, in New York. In 2023, she published Mythopoeias, an artist’s publication featuring collages and poems, with Rostfrei Publishing.

Yasmín Martín Vodopivec is a curator and museum advisor at the International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC). Throughout more than fifteen years of curatorial work, she has developed experimental approaches that focus on overlooked, original and socio ecological artistic practices. She is interested in artistic positions and exhibition formats that open space for dialogue, shifts in perspective and an understanding of differences as a source of new connections and meanings. She develops this approach through exhibition projects and in broader curatorial and institutional contexts, including the project Švicarija: Community, Art and Nature, through which she defined the programmatic foundation and direction of the renovated creative and residency centre. In 2019, the MGLC received the Živa Award for this project in recognition of its openness and attentiveness to visitors. In 2017, she was a member of the curatorial collective of the 32nd Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts and is currently contributing to the curatorial concept for its 37th edition.

David Tavčar is an industrial designer with extensive experience in the textile and fashion industries, working independently in the fields of design, marketing consultancy, teaching and curating. His work is rooted in traditional, high quality craftsmanship, which he connects with contemporary design approaches and an exploration of the possibilities of mass production. In the field of visual arts, he works as an author of exhibition design. For Spekter. 70 Years of the UGM Collection (Maribor Art Gallery, 2024–2026), he used his selection and spatial arrangement of artworks to address the issue of museum standards in an innovative and critical manner.

Anja Delbello in Aljaž Vesel are the founders of studio AA, whose approach is rooted in content-driven design that places the end user, reader or viewer at its centre. They work primarily in the cultural sector, creating visual identities, posters and information graphics for museums, galleries, theatres, festivals, publishers and media outlets. In recent years, the studio has focused chiefly on publication and exhibition design. They are regular collaborators of the International Centre of Graphic Arts. Their work has received numerous awards in Slovenia and internationally, including the Grand Prix at the ZGRAF13 international design exhibition in Zagreb in 2025.

The exhibition A thread without end was created in a harmonious collaboration between the artist Ana Čavić, the curator Yasmín Martín Vodopivec and the designers David Tavčar, Anja Delbello and Aljaž Vesel (AA).