At the very start of the jubilee festival season, the audience can look forward to an exhibition by our renowned photographer Mara Bratoš, titled "Lopud Portraits." The opening of the exhibition will take place in the atrium of Sponza Palace on Friday, July 12, at 9 PM.

Although she is a photographer based in Zagreb, Mara Bratoš invariably spends her summers in the south where she grew up, and where her talent was recognized and nurtured amidst the reflections of the sun, sea, and camera lens. The presented series of photographs frame the years from 1998 to 2024. In them, we recognize the signature style of the photographer, who, through her work, captures the small histories of people and migrations, as well as the absence of people on the islands, demonstrated by abandoned buildings, narrating tales of abandoned dreams and fears of those who once lived there.

The selected photographs also depict the everyday lives of young couples, girls, and boys with big dreams, and the nurturing moments of children and parents, which have a special significance in forming relationships among island families.

The common denominator among the portrayed subjects is their relaxed presence, framed by the well-known context of the island, which becomes their living space, whether it’s being photographed in the blazing summer sun or in the deep shade of the mystical Đorđić-Mayneri garden.

Mara Bratoš’s photographs, much like the island women, open their diaries to the observer and tell their life stories that are simultaneously gentle and harsh, loud and quiet, present and absent, like the summers themselves, whose memories shape our identities.

After the opening, the exhibition will be on display in the atrium of Sponza Palace until August 1, 2024.