Milena Kosec was born in January 1947 in Ljubljana (Slovenia, EU), where she has lived and worked her entire life. In 1974 she graduated in technical mathematics at Ljubljana University. In 1971 she started her first job at the Jožef Stefan Institute. She planned and led the elaboration of new applications for different fields in different companies, usually by means of the most current computer technology. By the end of year 2002 she was retired. In the years between1975 to 1983 she primarily devoted herself to her family.
Her artistic work began spontaneously with her first work “Državica PtiÄjestrašilna” (The Pocket-size State of Scarecrows) in 1992. After that, she performed several public actions which commented on events in Slovenia intertwined with her own intimate stories. In 2007 she decided that she would no longer produce anything material-based nor document her work. In 2008 she was invited to the European Contemporary Art Biennial MANIFESTA7, with one of her immaterial projects Random Private Conversations.
After her last art action in 2012, Milena read a lot about the situation in her country and the world in general. Bewildered by the vast and contradictory information available and the number of the contemporary artists with similar practice, she became unsure if her critical approach to art was still relevant. This has made her stop her art practice and return to the question: “what are the basic needs for life?” Having “water and food” as her answer to this question, she decided to improve her knowledge on them through manual work and organic gardening. Her first attempt at gardening this past year made her realize that she needed more education about various aspects of organic gardening.
During her 2nd year at RFAOH, she will continue to educate herself on this front while she may report some other related on-hiatus activities throughout the year. She feels that this on-hiatus activity may be helpful for her art practice in the future.
To be an honorary resident was even more liberating than to be a normal resident. I enjoyed in gardening without thinking what would be important to write for residence page. I am grateful to Shinobu and Matt for opportunity in which I was connected with other residents one year more. To be without any obligation was wonderful feeling.
The last year of the residency I improved my knowledge about gardening through every day practice. It was important that I have enough time for working in garden and cooking fresh vegetable every day. As I had enough different vegetables I ate much healthier. The final consequence of all together is strong improvement of my health (much less problems with chronic diseases).
In two years of residency I completely broke with routine of making art. As I had enough time for looking around and thinking I saw or better I felt how quick society is changing. Contemporary art can't adequately follow this changes caused by technology on one hand and hegemonic states on another hand. We as society are not aware at all what is going on. In front of us I see total unknown world which is completely indescribable, which I hardly can even think about. How than can I make comments on it?
My plan for future is gardening and different other activities. As artist I will probably stay on hiatus.
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On Nov 2 2015, shinobu commented on Autumnal Pampering: In Japan, too, and my mother told me that when she was little, on the day of full moon in September [...]Years ago I have been enjoying in skiing by myself and now:
Tina Maze – Slovenian skier is winner in Vail & Beaver Creek
https://sl-si.facebook.com/tinamaze?fref=ts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Maze
Peter Prevc 250m –Slovenian ski-jumper is record –holder in Vikersund
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Xl1SIdIGI
https://sl-si.facebook.com/prevcpeter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Prevc
What is going on between my winter slipping:
– Interview 1001 – New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato
– marije-meerman-the-tax-free-tour-2013 a film about non paid taxis
– and in Ljubljana a lecture and an exhibition about http://newworldsummit.eu/
MAtt wrote on Feb 16:
stay warm there Milena!
Matt wrote on Feb 16:
Interesting - "the economy" - that cultural ground we can never seem to dig beneath.
Do you know this media? Look what Corbett tells about my topic:
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-299-solutions-guerrilla-gardening/
And my global winter flowers: December and January
milena kosec wrote on Jan 25:
Enrique, thank you for interesting information about
balls of clay-enriched soil loaded with mixed seeds.
enrique wrote on Jan 22:
right !
i just remember about something that is going on also in argentina, articultores
http://www.stylus.com/prqhfy
thanks for the video !
Mary Kroetsch wrote on Jan 1:
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading all of your progress reports on the Garden.
We moved to a little bungalow 3 years ago and decided to create a garden. We know nothing about gardening - that was my Mom's area of expertise. But our community encourages taking the yards back to as natural a habitat as possible which means selecting plants that are able to self contain and live and play nice with other plants.
It's a challenge. Every time I put the spade in the ground I hit a rock. Last summer I turned all those rocks into a rock garden.
I find sitting on the ground and yanking out the Creeping Charlie of which we have a bumper crop, very therapeutic.
shinobu wrote on Dec 31:
It's so pretty, Milena, we had to use it as our greeting on RFAOH FB page, photo courtesy of you!
matt wrote on Dec 31:
:)
Instead of snow we have seeds of Japanese anemone (Anemone hupehensis) all around.
October 2014
After long rainy September we had twenty beautiful sunny and warm days of October. Temperature was about 20°C. But rains came again. We had extensive flood. At my house water came to the first stair and in the cellar with potatoes. Fortunately my vegetable garden lies a bit higher. So it wasn’t overflow. We had rain still in beginning of December. But we hadn’t temperature under zero at all. A big part of November temperature was about 10°C and then 5°C till the 10th December when we had first under zero temperature. Because favourable temperature I could eat fresh vegetable (broccoli, endive, carrot,..) from the garden. Now on the beds I still have very good sweet fennel, different kind of kales and radicchios. I haven’t any more leek (leek fly), celery (rust), spinach and red beet (a lot of different caterpillars and snails). With plastic box I covered parsley and tender radicchio (chicory) of Trieste to have them for early spring time. In beds I put winter salad, garlic and two different kinds of onions. I both also two fruit trees: apple and pear. So far all look very well. All beds I powdered with lime and covered with leaves. Unfortunately leaves give very good protection also to snails and other pests. But anyway the garden is prepared for winter time and I for internet in worm house. Momentary days are sunny but cold.
November 2014
For optimistic view on future I recommended one much more than beautiful film Le sel da la terre / Salt of the Earth by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. The film is documentary portray of photographer Sebastian Salgada.
December 2014
It is our pleasure to announce that Milena Kosec will stay at RFAOH another year as an honorary resident. Milena asked earlier if she could re-apply for the 2014/15 term as she had decided to postpone resuming her art practice and instead focus on her oh-hiatus activities one more year, as she mentioned in her final report. We, co-directors, discussed about this unexpected inquiry and decided to welcome her as an honorary resident.
In fact, there were a couple of on-hiatus proposals this year, similar to Milena’s, namely organic gardening. We find it intriguing that some of us, who feel in need of a break from art practice turn to hands-on activities like this. We are also sure that many artists garden on their time off. In the meantime, many parties nowadays, both organizations and individuals, consider their gardening as art and try to define it that way. Milena claims that her gardening is gardening with the ultimate goal of feeding herself entirely from her produce; it is not art-gardening or gardening-art. Yet at the same time she prefers to carry it out specifically at Residency For Artists on Hiatus. We are curious to know how she defines or talks about this within her “art community” and how they in return receive it.
We look forward to the further growth of her organic garden this year along with other on-hiatus reports she may deliver to us. Follow and comment on her posts, and join in our conversations at RFAOH!
Milena Kosec’s 12 month on-hiatus residency ended on September 30, 2014. We thank Milena for her (longest) participation as our inaugural resident and for sharing her rigorous on-hiatus activities in organic gardening and thoughts on the relationship between life and art. RFAOH sincerely wishes the best of luck for her post on-hiatus life, with lots of harvests and fewer snails in her organic gardens.
Click “Final Report” to read on her experience at RFAOH.
enrique wrote on Feb 22:
zuuuummm !