AN INTERNATIONAL STONE SCULPTURE SYMPOSIUM WITH LONG-STANDING TRADITION

From the 16th of September to the 12th of October 2019 the Forma Viva park in Portorož will become the workplace of three sculptors from Argentina, Iran and Slovenia.

Forma Viva Portorož is a stone sculpture park on the Seča peninsula that originates in biennial stone sculpture courses. The park is a one of a kind in Slovenia, with sculptures made from the native Istrian stone that gives the coastal towns of Slovene Istria, as well as the municipality of Piran where Forma Viva is located, its distinct and unique look. The symposium, however, reaches beyond just the Slovene coast; for more than 50 years now Forma Viva has been widely acknowledged both elsewhere in Slovenia and internationally.

In comparison with the other three sculpture centres in Slovenia (each using a different material: wood in Kostanjevica na Krki, steel in Ravne na Koroškem, concrete in Maribor) Forma Viva is the only one that has kept up regular and continuous symposiums since 1961. The only exception to this was the 2013 discussion-based symposium. Since sculptures were created during all other symposiums, the collection quickly expanded and outgrew its allocated space in the Forma Viva park. For this reason, new sculptures are now created in designated places outside the park, like the coastal city centres or their green surroundings. The municipality of Piran and the Piran Coastal Galleries have chosen three locations in Piran and Lucija for the purposes of the Forma Viva Symposium 2019.

The 2019 symposium’s call for applications, organized by the Piran Coastal Galleries earlier this year, was answered by 41 candidates from various countries such as Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, Montenegro, France, Georgia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Canada, Kazakhstan, China, Latvia, Germany, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and Great Britain. The jury, which based its selection on the opus of the artists, quality of their proposed sculpture and its suitability for the assigned locations, chose three artists for this year’s symposium: Benham Akharbin Moghanlou (Iran), Laura Marcos (Argentina) and Arijel Štrukelj (Slovenia).

The traditional sculpture symposium is sponsored by the municipality of Piran and the Slovene Ministry of Culture.