Magic Carpets: Karla Crnčević, Ruben Castillejo – Conversations with Fish
COCINA DE GUERRILLA is a collective that re-examines gastronomy, its knowledge, techniques and possibilities with the aim of satisfying people's nutritional needs and promoting food sovereignty as a guarantee of human rights. They use the kitchen as a tool for artistic creation, exploring the creative possibilities that food has to offer.
Jelsa Art Biennial on the island of Hvar is a contemporary art festival that connects diverse audiences through a variety of artistic media and practices. It focuses equally on established and emerging artists. The event is unique in that its works are mostly performed in public spaces, with the aim of bringing contemporary art closer to the widest possible audience and emphasizing art that conveys a message of social responsibility and sustainability. In this sense, JAB has a vision to become a unique and recognizable event of socially responsible art on a European level and a generator of development based on ecological awareness and culture.
Co-financed by: EU Creative Europe Programme, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, Jelsa Tourist Board, Split-Dalmatia County, City of Zagreb, Culture Moves Europe, Magic Carpets, Co-Vision, Goethe Institute, Kultura Nova Foundation, Municipality of Jelsa, Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board, City of Agueda
In partnership with: Jelsa Municipal Museum, Croatian Design Society, Monade, Dalmacijaland Gallery, Vrboska Film Festival, AgitLab, Mudri Brk
Media partners: T-Portal, Morski.hr
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The connection between fish and humans has been steadfast on the island of Hvar for centuries. Fish are not just a resource, or a means to an end. They are a call to action, an invitation to commune, a conversation starter, a community builder, a family’s survival. They are weaved into the fabric of the island’s society as tightly as the nets which catch them. Yet, as the small fishing boats slowly got overtaken by enormous cruise ships, the fish were left behind. Crowds of people now swarm the sunniest island in the Adriatic. The fishermen hung up their nets and swapped them for beautifully furnished, trendy terraces, visually stunning selections of gourmet meals, ice cream shop franchises and a peace of mind in knowing that the tourist remains ever hungry, ever curious.
The starting point of the artist residency beginning in April 2025 was a simple premise: if fish could talk - what exactly would they say? Thus began “Conversations with Fish”, an artistic project exchanged between Croatian artist and filmmaker Karla Crnčević and Basque anarcho-culinary collective Cocina de Guerrilla, represented by Ruben Castillejo, chef, artist and activist fighting for food sovereignty. Ruben and Karla joined the team of Jelsa Art Biennial in an on-site residency in June 2025, traveling from Basque country in a mobile culture center - a white van equipped with a kitchen, soundsystem, projection screen, mixer and microphones, which they then occupied for the remainder of their residency. This self-sustaining concept of bringing your cultural and culinary event set-up wherever you go is one of the reasons why Cocina de Guerrilla’s Ruben has been able to chip away at their mission of highlighting food and cooking as an artistic and activist practice, while Karla took it upon herself to dig deeper into the archives of humans’ connections to fishery, their symbiotic and exploitative nature simultaneously. They connected to fishermen and fisherwomen alike, restaurant owners, fishmongers and historians on the island by engaging in conversations and oral testimony on the state of the modern-day netsmith, and all the various roles they take on in order to keep up with the ever growing tourism demands.
Through three happenings in public space, placed in Jelsa and Hvar town, Karla and Ruben engaged locals, tourists and passers-by to ask them a series of questions in a street interview style exchange; their only request being that the answers come from the perspective of a fish. By putting people in the fish’s fins, the answers to the questions varied greatly. “How do you communicate?” (“By blowing bubbles.”), “Do you like humans?” (“I fear them.”), “What kind of fish do you like?” (“I like fish that is colorful, I like fish that is playful, but I don’t like fish that is fishy.”) After the conversations, the audience was invited to a food tasting, trying out experimental recipes that Ruben came up with, of course, with fish as the main star. On the menu were lemon cocktails created using a traditional fish stock as a base, as well as an ice cream featuring salty anchovies and a watermelon rind topping. Much like the fish questions, the response from the visitors was immediate - some delightfully surprised, some spitting in disgust. The meals were created as food for thought, to inspire reminiscence of all the ways in which fish seem to be overlooked, even in their own home territory. Using archival material as a visual backdrop, Karla ended the happenings by doing a poetry reading and showcasing a selection of Croatian animated films featuring topics of fish and the sea.
The events served as condensed tourist seasons in a nutshell, offering conversations, entertainment and refreshments, but twisting them slightly to serve as polygons for thinking about our own relationship with the environment, how it shapes us, how much (or little?) respect it earns for all that it gives away. The sea, a turbulent, vast home, deserves to be reveled and feared, protected and cared for, all of which it is so often deprived of.