Slovenia (Republic of) 2026

Title: Soundtrack for an Invisible House
Commissioner: Martina Vovk, Moderna galerija Ljubljana
Curator: Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez
Exhibitors: NONUMENT GROUP (Neja Tomšič, Martin Bricelj Baraga, Nika Grabar, Miloš Kosec)
Scientific Advisor: Anja Zalta

“Soundtrack for an Invisible House” takes as its starting point a little-known episode of European history: the construction in 1917 of a temporary wooden mosque by the Austro-Hungarian Army in Log pod Mangartom, near Slovenia’s northwestern border. Built to serve Bosnian Muslim soldiers fighting on the Isonzo Front during World War I, the structure was part of the empire’s military infrastructure — an instance of religion being mobilised in the service of politics and propaganda. After the war, the mosque disappeared, leaving behind only a handful of photographs. Recently unearthed through archaeological excavations and officially registered as a heritage site in 2025, it now exists as what the Nonument Group calls a “nonument”: a site whose meaning has been transformed by political and social change, and whose absence speaks as loudly as any physical presence.

Installed in the Arsenale Exhibition Spaces, the project transforms this architectural trace into a space for listening, reflection, and historical re-examination. The Nonument Group uses the site to explore how religion has been — and continues to be — mobilised in the service of war and power, while tracing the shifting identities of European Muslim communities across the 20th and 21st centuries.