The work of focuses on an ordinary, overlooked object: a bag of brown Polish coal. The coal, which was once part of Saša Nemec’s installation exploring industrial memory and intangible cultural heritage, was intended for transformation – perhaps as conceptual material, perhaps as a symbolic offering to the Šoštanj thermal power plant in Slovenia. Instead, it ended up discarded under a communal staircase: a silent, unceremonious fall. This simple act strips the coal of all layers of meaning, leaving behind a relic that is both present and hidden. In his work, Čuček Gerbec confronts the entropy of cultural value, the slow fading of stories we once attributed to things, and the uncertain afterlife of materials trapped between use, symbolism, and waste. (text by Kateřina Pencová)
The work has been exhibited at Schaumbad in Graz in 2025: Schnittstelle #3: Edges of Navigation.