Muzej-Museo Lapidarium, Novigrad-Cittanova
15 May – 26 June 2026
Opening: Friday, 15 May 2026 at 7 p.m.
SIC MUNDUS, by artist Dragana Sapanjoš, is a multimedia project that unfolds through the architecture of the museum, its historical layers, and its collection of stone fragments.
The exhibition takes as its point of departure the alchemical formula Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem, “Visit the interior of the earth; by rectifying, you will find the hidden stone”, known by the acronym V.I.T.R.I.O.L. Within the space of the Lapidarium, this formula develops as a path through light, sound, sculpture, reflection, and the movement of the visitor.
SIC MUNDUS activates the museum as an architectural and mnemonic organism. The roof, the entrance threshold, the black box of the baptistery, and the black box of the altar become stages in a spatial dramaturgy through which the visitor moves. Historical stone, contemporary technology, the voice of the community, and the visitor’s body meet in the experience of moving through the museum space.
The exhibition is realized as a new production by Dragana Sapanjoš and includes a retrospective segment that opens up the continuity of her artistic practice and her long-standing collaboration with Muzej-Museo Lapidarium.
The exhibition will open on Friday, 15 May 2026 at 7 p.m., with a performative presentation realized in collaboration with the choir Cantus PoPuli.
On the occasion of International Museum Day, on Monday, 18 May 2026 at 7 p.m., artist Dragana Sapanjoš will lead an artist’s guided tour of the exhibition. The tour will offer direct insight into the process of creating the work, its spatial and symbolic layers, and the relationship of the new production to the collection and architecture of Muzej-Museo Lapidarium.
The exhibition remains open until 26 June 2026.
Biography:
Dragana Sapanjoš (Koper, 1979) is a visual artist whose practice develops at the intersection of sculpture, installation, and performative practices, with a focus on the analysis of symbolic systems and structures that shape perception, behavior, and the production of meaning. Her artistic work is directed toward a critical examination of the mechanisms through which reality is produced, through the construction of situations that destabilize the relationship between the subject and the system. Error, repetition, and dysfunction appear as constitutive elements of her work, not as deviations, but as sites where the internal logic of a structure is revealed.
She studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice and at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, where she graduated in painting in 2004. Already during her studies, she directed her interest toward contemporary and new-media practices, developing an interdisciplinary approach that connects art, design, and visual culture.
She has participated in international residency and educational programs, including the Corso Superiore di Arti Visive at Fondazione Antonio Ratti in Como, VIR Viafarini-in-Residence in Milan, and Vulcano Extravaganza. She is the recipient of awards, grants, and residency/study supports, including the ACACIA Studio Grant in Milan, the Moroso Award for Contemporary Art, and the Triennial of Croatian Sculpture Award at the Glyptotheque of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Since 1999, she has exhibited continuously in Croatia and abroad. Her work has been presented in numerous institutional and independent contexts through solo and group exhibitions. After many years of working in Milan, she returned to Croatia in 2012 and today lives and works in Novigrad-Cittanova. Her artistic practice develops in parallel with her research practice within the doctoral program at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb.