Mala galerija Banke Slovenije
About exhibition
During the Vietnam War, US Admiral Jeremiah A. Denton was taken as a prisoner of war. While in captivity, on May 2nd, 1966, he was interviewed by a Japanese reporter for North-Vietnamese propaganda. He described his situation in prison as "acceptable", in his own terms. But while he pretended to be blinded by the camera’s strong lights, he winked out a continuous secret message in Morse code that said: "T-O-R-T-U-R-E - T-O-R-T-U-R-E". The interview that was sold to ABC and broadcast in the USA on 17 May 1966 confirmed that prisoners of war were being tortured in Vietnam. Denton remained in prison until 1973.
This historical event is associated with John Frankenheimer's 1962 thriller entitled The Manchurian Candidate. The film opens with the capture of a troop of soldiers during the Korean War who, while believing they are attending a meeting of a women's gardening club, are being brainwashed. These two examples intertwine in order to reveal the role of flowers in various encryption processes.
Exploring the duplicity of floriology, students from the Master's programme Space and Communication at HEAD – Genève and ALUO, University of Ljubljana, worked together in small groups as double agents to create floral images that convey political, feminist and queer messages.
The Denton Project was led by Alexandra Midal and Emma Pflieger at HEAD – Genève from April to November 2024, in collaboration with Barbara Predan, University of Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, with Studio Pfliegerfœglé and Raphaël Lugassy. This project is financially supported by the HES-SO, Embassy of Switzerland in Slovenia and the research programme P5-0452, Visual Literacy at the University of Ljubljana, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, co-financed by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS).
Teaching Assistants: Žan Kobal, Tamara Lašič Jurković, Eloïse Vo
Authors: Nguveren Ahua, Laurène Allard, Léa Campos, Marta Córdoba Ruiz, Anes Dhif, Zoja Funda Lipnik, Nia Gombač, Maxime Heta, Nika Horvat, Domen Klinc, Sunwoo Lee, Gabriela Luchetta, Aurore Mesot, Andrija Mihailović, Sven Odermatt, Eva Popit, Marjana Raspor, Lou Revel, Franciszek Sienkiewicz, Marc-Arthur Sohna, Marko Škrbić, Črt Štrubelj, Rin Togo, Živa Vaukan, Nika Vidnjevič
