This exhibition at tranzit.sk explores oil extraction in the Záhorie region in Western Slovakia, an seeimgly deslolate environment of »donkeys« in the oil fields around the town of Malacky. The history and possible future of a society built on extraction, and a creative and curious man who worked – before the donkeys – with the essence from the bowels of the earth is at focus: Ján Medlen, a homo faber from a town called Gbely.

Opening: 6 February 2026, 18:00

Venue: tranzit.sk, Beskydská 12, Bratislava

He didn’t like corners and nooks where, according to him, negative energy is concentrated. He preferred circles and bubbles, organic and flowing, boundless. That is how he became an architect. He exchanged fertile soil for wetlands, which are in motion like an element. He discovered gas leaking from the ground and was not afraid to work with it. Underneath it lay the oil which the state seized and began to use to fuel the machinery of war. Oil is the detonator and fuel of military conflicts to this day.

Sound plays a central role in the exhibition: the suction and movement from one cavity to another shape the architecture of the exhibition. The barrel becomes Medlen’s rotunda, and concrete and bronze castings function as allegories of fossil form and density.

Matej Gavula is a graduate of the Studio of Glass of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. He works mainly with sculpture, but also with photography, video, and performance, and has been involved in exhibition architecture and scenography. In addition to exhibiting, he researches sculpture from the 1970s and 1980s and its impact on public space with a view to its connection to architecture. He currently runs the Studio of Free Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design.

Jonáš Gruska is a multidisciplinary artist primarily dealing with aural phenomena, psychoacoustics and sonics beyond our hearing range. He has authored dozens of sound installations, site-specific performances and concerts. Jonáš is the founder of LOM – experimental music label, cultural venue and an instrument manufacturing company.

Header image: Gbely – The City and Oil Industry Exposition