Gabika Binderová entered the art scene in the 1990s. Gradually, however, the artist started to stray from her art career in favor of other missions – family and professional ones. After a break of several years, she created a participatory project sharing her experiences with new receptive people and offered them an opportunity to become fellow travelers on her journey. At the beginning of October 2021, she posted the following challenge on her social network account:
“I have lived in an Alpine village at the foot of the Julian Alps for almost 7 years. My project and a comeback after a long time is participating in the exhibition The Lost Human with something I do almost daily. I have drawn maps for almost 7 years and I have distributed hundreds of them. To anybody lost and searching, I offer participation in an art project. Not only will they get free accommodation in the Triglav National Park, but they will also receive a special map of their individual journey drawn by me. (…) I know many trails around here. Some of them are unknown even to the locals, others only the locals know. This country invites you to explore it. You might know that there is a huge amount of pristine water and waterfalls. Through them I first realized that each of them has a completely different character. Bearing that in mind I choose and “prescribe” trails to the people coming here. Not always though, during the season time is precious. And not to everyone either, of course. For those who come up with a plan to do the entire Triglav National Park in three days it is not worth drawing my map, so I would rather leave it to them. (..)
Thus, I prepared these trips:
The Trail of Silence
The Trail of Vista
The Trail of Purification
The Trail of Courage
The Trail of Nexus
The Trail of Search
The Trail of Inside
The Trail of Water
The Trial of Joy
The epicenter will be Dovje. Here in Slovenia, they call it the “sunny village”. (…) As rays come from the sun, so will the trails come from Dovje. You will choose the trail after our interview and then I will draw a map for you (my drawing and the interview with you will be recorded, no faces, only the interview and the drawing). You get a hand-drawn map, which you will follow. In my map, there will be a route and my adventures, everything I have ever experienced on the given route, I will present to you. Your only task will be to record your journey and your experiences on it in such a way, as to be able to convey them to others. Any recording of your journey – an object, a description, a confession, a poem, any audio or visual recording. It is up to you what and how you approach it, ideally in a tangible, visual or audioform. It will be your own experience map or trail. Your map will either be reused by some other participant of this project whom you might meet here or it will become part of the exhibition.”