Precarity and Self-Protection in Five Windows

consists of five paintings done in acrylic colours on fabric, depicting situations from economic and social reality. They can be read from left to right, chronologically, as individual works with telling titles: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progress, Turnaround into Precarization, Multitasking Octopus (Outsourcing), Only Uniting Can Help and Horizontal Cooperation.




The theme of the work is precarious employment relationships (self-employment, fixed-term contracts, enterprise contracts, work through agencies, author's contracts, undeclared work, etc.), a pressing issue of several decades. Individuals entering the labour market from the early 1990s are pressed against a lack of secure jobs. At the same time, they carry within them the idea of self-realization, which has been widely ignited during the previous half-century of relatively inclusive economic growth. Enveloped by conflicting forces, workers yield en masse to short-term survival strategies even if, by so doing, they undermine their working conditions. Typically, they have to negotiate with much more prominent, influential, and economically stronger organizations as if they were equal in power. In such strikingly asymmetric power relations, the stronger one usually passes the economic risk and costs to individuals and smaller companies.

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Precarity and Self-Protection in Five Windows, in Pešak Night Window Display Gallery, Masarykova 24, May to July 2024, Ljubljana. (Photo Boško Rakočević)
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Solo exhibition within Ljubljana Art Weekend 2024; Precarity and Self-Protection in Five Windows, May to July 2024.) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Photo Boško R.)
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Photo Boško R.)
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Photo Boško R.)
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization(Solo exhibition within Ljubljana Art Weekend 2024, May to July 2024.) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization (Photo Boško R.)
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization (Photo Boško R.)
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization (Photo Boško R.)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing), Pešak Night Window Display Gallery, May to July 2024, Ljubljana. (Photo Boško R.)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help (Exhibition within Ljubljana Art Weekend 2024, May to July 2024.) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help (Photo Boško R.)
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help (Photo Boško R.)
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Horizontal Cooperation, window 5 of the Precarity and Self-Protection in Five Windows exhibition. (Photo Boško R.)
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window 5 Horizontal Cooperation (Photo Boško R.)
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window 5 Horizontal Cooperation (Photo Boško R.)
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window 5 Horizontal Cooperation (Photo Boško R.)

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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Photo Boško R.)
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Photo Boško R.)
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Photo Boško R.)
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window 1: Growing Up Through the Prospect of Progres (Photo Boško R.)
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization (Photo Boško R.)
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window 2: Turnaround into Precarization (Photo Boško R.)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 3: Multitasking octopus (outsourcing) (Photo Boško R.)
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help (Photo Boško R.)
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help (Photo Boško R.)
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help (Photo Boško R.)
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window 4: Only Uniting Can Help (Photo Boško R.)
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window 5 Horizontal Cooperation
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window 5 Horizontal Cooperation
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window 5 Horizontal Cooperation (Photo Boško R.)
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windows 4 and 5: Only Uniting Can Help and Horizontal Cooperation
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windows 3, 4 and 5: Multitasking octopus, Only Uniting Can Help and Horizontal Cooperation

Julij Borštnik

email: julijb@protonmail.com

phone: +38651237407