Scene
This Thursday, June 5, the final exhibition of the season organized by KHAOS! will open at the Funk club in Zagreb. The opening of the exhibition titled “radna verzija” [eng. “work in progress”] by Tonka Sušec will begin at 8 PM, and visitors can view the exhibition for free until Monday, June 30.
The concept behind the exhibition came from artist Tonka Sušec’s personal decision to quit smoking. She highlights smoking as a significant part of Croatian social identity and describes it as a ritual:
“In our society, smoking plays a special role. Unlike in Western countries, in Croatia, smoking still functions as a social lubricant—even a symbol of relaxation. For me, smoking, both as a material and an act, became part of my identity, whether I admitted it to myself or not. In this work, I don’t explore smoking as an addiction, but as a micro-performance of everyday life—a ritual. In that sense, quitting smoking becomes more than just an act of self-control; it’s a break from the self—what’s left is an identity in collapse or being reassembled from fragments. It’s up to you to decide.“
The artist poses questions such as: “Who am I when the ritual stops?” and “What remains?”
Although Sušec is currently a painting major in the graduate program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, for this exhibition she employed various techniques and used materials such as remnants of her own tobacco, rolling papers, and filters.
