Stereotypes. Prejudices. Beauty ideals. Condemnation. Opinion based on first impression. Actors of our subconscious response. Do you dare to admit that they affect you too? No matter how open-minded you are? How well can you control your thinking?

The work Close up addresses the points of social gray zones that most women in our area face directly. Authors and performers Barbara Ribnikar, Nika Batista, and Nina Ramsak Markovic explored ways of performance strategies that deal with issues of viewing conventions, with the aim of breaking the viewer's assumptions about what is seen. Through the process, they searched for different art forms that evoke a sense of indeterminacy and ambiguity in the viewer.

The experience of the gray zone, in which we find ourselves when the various parameters of reality are not precisely defined, was a central theme that was explored both through the format of the resulting event and through its content. Up close, through an interactive form, he problematizes intimate prejudices that are inscribed in our bodies as habits, thereby offering the viewer, through an individual experience, the opportunity to shed light on his own area of ​​gray zones.

The event entitled Up Close in Glej is part of the wider international project Boundary Crossing, in which artists from Slovenia, the Netherlands, and Turkey participated in April and May 2021. The event is part of a performance triptych, which is conceptually connected to the creation of colleagues from Turkey and the Netherlands.