Your photography is informed by the history of your family, from your ‘super’ grandparents to your newborn son, but at the same time you document raw scenes in wild live gigs and house parties. What does intimacy mean to you?

Yes, basically I’m just trying to draw a simple line through my life and tell this pristine story I have on my mind. I always found my life special, don’t know why – I get fascinated by my grandparent’s basement for ex- ample, or my friend shaving his penis while taking a shower, even a mirror selfie with my little Vincent in my hands. Vincent is my son, so let’s not get too excited for now, ok? Intimacy somehow became not so intimate to me anymore, if that makes sense, but at the same time it’s my creative fuel. It’s present all the time and like I said before – I need to keep it pris- tine, it helps me to stay sane.

In 2019, you received the OHO Group Award after an RU residency in New York where you asked yourself ‘in what ways can a radically different, completely new environment affect you’. How would you now reply to this question?

Oh boy, New York really got me in the best possible way, to be frank. Being so far away from home in a city, which was on my wish list almost my entire life, helped me to relax and get honest with myself. I landed there in a pretty bad condition and I wasn’t even aware of that. It helped me to start over again, both in a personal and professional way. All this wouldn’t be possible if the RU residency wouldn’t have my back. Basically what I did in New York was get up early in the morning, have a coffee and then just cruise the streets for the rest of the day while thinking about my upcoming projects. All I knew for certain is that I should not lose this vibe and freshness when I get back to Ljubljana, this was the most important thing. It reshaped me again into something which was lost a long time ago. I knew there was something missing. It was this lust to create every day, without any compromises. Yeah, I’m ok now.

Beside photographs, you have recently introduced collages and texts in the exhibition “But don’t show this to my kid” in Škuc Gallery. What brought you to this expansion?

I think this was kinda boiling in me for quite some time. I got to the point where I just needed more to express myself and I always leave the door open for new stuff. When I started taking photos almost 15 years ago, I felt that joy and urge to destroy things, everything was so new and rough to me and I felt exactly the same way when I started with my writ- ings recently. This feeling is kind of addictive and as long as I’m feeling this, I know I’m on a good path. The rest doesn’t matter. There’s also one more important reason for sure – this spring I had a show with Roman Uranjek (IRWIN) called “Mentors”. So, we would see each other for almost six months and I’d teach him photography and he’d teach me how to draw. This helped to get comfortable with pastels and paper way quicker.

Which is the most challenging part in being an artist today based in Slovenia?

It’s kind of sad I have to say this, but it’s the Government. There’s just no room for artists in their right-wing mentality. It feels like Janez Janša, the Prime Minister of Slovenia, is doing his best to ruin what’s left. They are destroying non-governmental organisations, cutting down resources for film, theatre and just art in general, not to mention they are publicly bashing artists who they don’t like, or I should better say, understand. But hey, we somehow need to stay positive, there’s still some place left in Hell.