ACT wants to honour the remembrance of Nevenka Koprivsek, founder and director of Bunker, Ljubljana. We miss her presence and personality. Eleven testimonies reveal how she embodied what ACT is all about.

foraging the field

I don’t remember exactly when I met Nevenka for the first time. It must have been at an IETM meeting, or in Avignon. I had just started working with LIFT, and through the Theorem network I encountered a number of incredible theatre professionals from all over Europe.

However, it was as part of the network THIN ICE, which then became IMAGINE 2020, and has now evolved into ACT, that I got to know Nevenka, and her incredible Bunker team very well. I have so many memories of her, at various festivals and artists gatherings, and at meetings where she was not afraid to ask for a break if things were dragging on for too long … We had a number of IMAGINE 2020 meetings in Ljubljana (travelling there by train was an experience in itself), but as I lived in Paris we also saw each other many times there, as she always made time to meet up when she came there. The last time I saw Nevenka was when I stayed with her during Mladi Levi 2018. I had timed my visit during the picnic up in the hills close to Ljubljana. What a treat to have had that time then, and throughout the years, with such an incredible, inspiring, generous person.

The image I have chosen reminds me of Nevenka for several reasons. In 2013, Imagine 2020 organised a retreat. I was managing the network at the time, and we had decided to take stock, to review of our achievements, and address shortcomings. We also felt that we usually rushed through meetings, and hurried to shows to be seen, and that for once there should be time away from a specific partner’s venue to cook and share a meal, and just meet differently. The retreat was taking place in a large house in the Ardennes. Before dinner, Nevenka suggested we should all forage in the large garden for wild herbs to be made into a salad. She was quite the specialist! We all got down on our knees and harvested a number of different herbs, well beyond the dandelion leaves that even I could identify…. I find some parallels in that in how Nevenka foraged for wild, young (and not so young) artists. How she would discover them, nurture them, and during Mladi Levi or other Bunker events mix them into an original, surprising, spicy, delicious “salad” for all of us.

Nevenka, you will be missed!!

Theresa von Wuthenau
Project Manager Imagine 2020, 2009-2015 

the basic skills are more useful here

This is a transcript from a survival story. It’s a post apocalyptical speculative conversation with Nevenka in a flooded world. I hear once more the laughters of my dear friend. Her laughter, smiles, fill throughout this story.

“These days I eat, the fishes under my boat, ahahaha, which is really great and it helps me to survive. I actually I have a small net, I really like fish, hihihihihii, from time to time I get lucky and they get stuck in the net. I find occasionally in the lucky days. But it is complicate there are other animals who also survived this disaster, they look like beavers but they are not, a mix between beaver and a rat, they fight as they also want to have some food, so it is not so easy.

Humans and animals are fighting for the same now. Food.
For the water, I have a system to collect steam, i’m collecting the condense, ahahaha, I’m collecting the water humidity from the air. I live alone, lonely in my boat, and I don’t meet other people, I never manage to get far, I didn’t meet anyone, so all the animals that are fighting with me become also my friends. Well, with fish is difficult to talk. Hihihihi. But I miss to use words, to have some human touch. That would be nice. Human touch would be enough, but of course if it’s there, it would not be enough. Humor would be very nice! Hihihi. Ahahahah, I’m glad the animals are here, I can talk with them. But… yes it’s not that I don’t want to meet anyone. In general I’m a very social person. But If I would meet someone I would like to share with them the fish I meet.

I quite like to be here, no structure, no rules, but I don’t know for how long…ahhahahha.
I’m not searching for anything. Is just nice to contemplate what is left. Hehehehhehh. What can you do? hahahahha. I don’t need that much. It is a struggle. But not a big one. Ahahah. I miss books. Actually I’m a diver. But I don’t have my equipment anymore. I’m training my breath to dive deep down to find fish. The basic skills are more useful here. I’m not a good diver. But, I have plenty of time. I don’t know what I can do with time. I stop counting. I don’t have the list to cross in my agenda, what I did and what I should do. It’s nice! Hahahha. I know when is night when is day, the sun is still there. Sharing, listening, inventing, eating being alive is all what is important. Being alive is a gift! I like new beginnings. It would be nice to change our senses, there are many different kinds of love to explore.

For the new beginning, it would be: not do too much, if you do too much you end up fucking up things. The new beginning is meant to take time to explore, enjoy and learn, oh yes the capacity of learning. Ahihihihi. I think, that what went wrong, was probably the competition which led us to greed. Too much of power. Which didn’t do well to anybody, and destroyed quite a lot of things. But I believe in potential and regeneration. I don’t see nature as my enemy, sometimes I’m more afraid that I’m nature’s enemy. This land was once only water, so it happened already. But they forgot, I heard something very interesting, dated from the roman times, about a road done on wetlands with branches, that you could walk on the top of wet lands. But in that century, there were paying more attentions to the system in nature, they were using plants and branches to craft nets and transform it into some kind of island and gardens, like this one. That is why we should preserve seeds. It is definitely a survival item. I could go one like this for one more a day or two or a month. I would like to stay longer. Hahahahaha. It is wonderful. Just floating. Ahahahah.”

Maria Lucia Cruz Correia
artist / guardian of nature / environmental activist

countless conversations

Dear Nevenka, it is difficult to accept that you have left us.
I feel your quiet and warm strength every time I think of you. So many memories come to my mind: the late night discussions with the board of Danse Bassin Mediterranée, our collaboration in the nomadic Sites of Imagination project, brainstorming around art and participation in the Create to Connect network, thinking of art and climate change with our friends from Imagine 2020 and ACT – Art, Climate, Transition, countless conversations about artists and their work (and our shared concern of making the work of artists from the south more visible on the international scene), but also the happy dinners, the occasional party, and now and then a walk on a sunny beach or in a green park. It was always good to be near you, Nevenka. We will all miss your attentive, thoughtful and warm presence, but your force and enthusiasm will live on in the many people you have touched.
It is a sunny afternoon in Lisbon. I will plant a tree for you, as our friends from Bunker suggested, and drink a glass of wine in your memory.

Mark Deputter
Coordinator of ACT – Art, Climate, Transition, 2020-2023
Artistic Director Culturgest, Lisbon

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Dragan Protić
founder artists group ŠKART