{"id":28695,"date":"2026-06-12T14:54:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/?p=28695"},"modified":"2026-06-17T11:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T09:58:07","slug":"tilyen-mucik-seeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/tilyen-mucik-seeds\/","title":{"rendered":"TILYEN MUCIK: SEEDS"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tilyen Mucik: Seeds<\/em> |\u00a0<\/strong>
photographs |\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Curated by Vida Jocif |\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lo\u017ea Gallery (Tito Square 1), Koper | 2.07.2026\u201310.09.2026 |\u00a0<\/strong>
Opening: Thursday 2.07.2026 |\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In collaboration with Galerija Fotografija, Ljubljana.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tilyen Mucik, Seeds<\/i>, Acacia mangium<\/i>, 2025.<\/small><\/p>\n

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In one tiny seed, plants combine the past, the present and the future. With their ancient origins, they remind us of what once was, as plants began to reproduce with seeds more than 350 million years ago. Today, there are more than 350,000 plant species recorded in the world, of which the vast majority, as many as 260,000, produce various forms of seeds. Plants produce the oxygen we breathe, nourish us and are widely used in nearly all areas of human activity. Seeds also reflect the future \u2013 they carry it within them, safeguarding the prospect of life in a world still in the making. This incredibly rich subject matter, both physically and symbolically, attracted the visual artist Tilyen Mucik, inspiring her to create a series of photographs titled Seeds. Years ago, while cataloguing and organising her home seed collection, her fascination with minute seeds and their diverse shapes spurred her to begin documenting them.<\/p>\n

The artist\u2019s enthusiasm soon grew into an extensive project, in which a multitude of seeds of all possible shapes and colours, found or grown by herself or brought to her from near and far by friends and acquaintances, appeared in front of her lens. This year, she expanded the existing series with her latest works, a colourful selection of fresh, brand new botanical portraits, which this time include not only seeds but also fruits. The Seeds photo series was created digitally, with each seed image being composed from hundreds of photographs. Due to the limitations of macro photography, which allows only an extremely narrow range to be focused, the artist used a mechanical robot designed and made by her partner Matej Nahtigal specifically for this project. The device allowed her to move the camera in a controlled manner by approx. 0.2 mm and then combine the individual shots into the final image. This gives the viewer the opportunity to see the entire enlarged seed at once, while also allowing them to admire all of its incredible details in uniform focus. The studio photography process itself is time-consuming, but add to that the subsequent digital processing and assembly of all the photographs in post-production. In Tilyen Mucik\u2019s photographs, the humble seeds, which we rarely pay attention to beyond their direct use, are deliberately placed in the spotlight, at the centre of our gaze. We encounter each one individually as they shine in supernatural sizes and boast extraordinary forms, showing off their fantastic colours and revealing the supernatural shapes and subtle textures of their surfaces.<\/p>\n

The photographs are not only impactful visually, but also carry strong symbolism. Each seed contains a plant embryo, safely stored and surrounded by a protective shell and nutrients, which allows it to survive through time, unfavourable for germination, such as periods of winter or drought, which can last not only for years, but even centuries. This does not only affect the survival of the plants themselves, but also of all those who depend on them in various ways. Seeds carry a treasure, a secret that is only revealed in the right circumstances, a potentiality that sprouts when the conditions are right, takes root, grows into a mature plant and ultimately produces a new generation. The cycle is thus complete and ready to begin again. Mucik, who has been developing and upgrading her photographic series for several years now, succeeds in fascinating the viewers with her work time and time again. In addition to her two-dimensional photographs, she has now expanded her series even further with a collection of recycled silver jewellery made in collaboration with Nika Klinec, a jewellery designer and maker. The main characters, naturally, are selected plant seeds or fruits in which seeds are hidden safely. The selection is not accidental: corn, for example, is essential for ensuring food independence, while linden and the common poppy evoke the precious heritage of indigenous peoples, herbalists and gatherers, the European spindle tree reminds us of the importance of preserving traditional craftsmanship and skills … Each with its own story and symbolism, these species remind us of the interconnectedness and interdependence of the human and plant realms.<\/p>\n

Everything therefore originates from plants \u2013 and even before that, from their seeds. When considering hundreds of millions of years since plants have been reproducing with their aid, the brief moment of human presence on Earth seems completely insignificant, yet today it is us who determine their fate. With her dedication to botanical motifs, the visual artist Tilyen Mucik constantly directs the viewer\u2019s attention to topics that would otherwise often go unnoticed, and she does so in an innovative and thought-provoking manner. Her work evokes boundless wonder and, above all, raises awareness of the crucial role of plants in Earth\u2019s ecosystems and our responsibility for their preservation.<\/p>\n

Vida Jocif<\/p>\n<\/p>\n


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The artist would like to thank Matej Nahtigal for his technical help and for making the robot, Ekosemena Institute, Semenjalnica, Biodynamic school garden Radovljica, Biodynamic school garden\u00a0Kranjska Gora, Ale\u0161 Jezer\u0161ek, greengrocers from the Ljubljana central market, Bo\u017eena Tepe\u0161, Klavdija Hiti, Tropical seeds, friends and family, and Mother Nature.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Biography<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Tilyen Mucik (1995)<\/strong>\u00a0is a visual artist who lives and works in Ljubljana. After finishing her graduate studies at The Faculty of Applied Sciences (VIST) in 2018, she finished her master studies in Photography at the Academy of Visual art and Design in Ljubljana in 2022. Since 2011, she has exhibited her works in Slovenia and internationally (among others in Boz\u030cidar Jakac gallery, Galerija Fotografija, P74 gallery, Ljubljana City Hall,\u00a0Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts,\u00a0Museum of Contemporary Art MSUM+, Layer House, Cankar Hall, Kresija gallery, Lo\u017ea Gallery,\u00a0Museum of Arts and Crafts Zagreb\u00a0and Galerie Albrecht in Berlin). Her works were published in different online and printed magazines, such as\u00a0Wotisart?<\/em>,\u00a0SemiMagazine<\/em>,\u00a0Float\u00a0<\/em>magazine and\u00a0F-stop<\/em>\u00a0magazine.<\/p>\n

Her book\u00a0Plant-Based\u00a0<\/em>is one of the photobook winners at Belfast Photo Festival (2025). Mucik is also one of the finalists of Kranj Foto Fest (2023), the recipient of the Float Photo Magazine curator's award (2022), a special mention by Envision Arts (2020) and the runner-up in the category \u00bbArtistic concept\u00ab at Rovinj PhotoDays festival (2018). We presented her works at several international art fairs, such as Paris Photo,\u00a0Photo Basel,\u00a0viennacontemporary,\u00a0Unseen, Zero Pixel, and YIA Paris.\u00a0Among her most recognisable series are\u00a0Plant-Based<\/em>, which was also published in bookform,\u00a0Seeds\u00a0<\/em>(2023\u2013) and\u00a0Shrubs<\/em>\u00a0(2020), which explore the artist\u2019s love of botanical photography, alternative photographic processes and plant-based pigments.<\/p>\n

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Tilyen Mucik: Seeds |\u00a0photographs |\u00a0 Curated by Vida Jocif |\u00a0 Lo\u017ea Gallery (Tito Square 1), Koper | 2.07.2026\u201310.09.2026 |\u00a0Opening: Thursday 2.07.2026 |\u00a0 In collaboration with Galerija Fotografija, Ljubljana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":28688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibitions","category-loza-gallery"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28695"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28798,"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28695\/revisions\/28798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obalne-galerije.si\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}