Barbara Knežević: Gvozdene Kapije | The Iron Gates

Barbara Knežević: Gvozdene Kapije | The Iron Gates is an ambitious exhibition of film and sculpture that explores how cultural heritage is shaped, threatened and transformed by political change, industrial development and human intervention. Through a compelling combination of moving image and large-scale sculptural installation, Knežević invites audiences to reflect on the fragile relationship between people, place and memory.

At the heart of the exhibition is a powerful film set in the Iron Gates region of the Danube, where the construction of a vast hydroelectric dam dramatically altered both the landscape and the lives of local communities. During the dam’s construction, the internationally significant 10,000-year-old archaeological site of Lepenski Vir was uncovered, revealing one of Europe’s earliest known monumental sculptural traditions while also highlighting the difficult balance between preservation and progress.

Responding to this year’s National Heritage Week theme, Heritage at Risk, the exhibition considers what is lost when landscapes are reshaped and communities displaced. Drawing on personal histories alongside wider narratives of migration, nationhood and environmental change, Knežević asks how heritage can survive in places marked by conflict, technological ambition and transformation. Industrial materials, ceramics, stone and steel combine to create sculptural works that echo monuments, ruins and archaeological remains, encouraging visitors to consider the stories embedded within the objects and environments that surround us.

Rather than looking only to the past, The Iron Gates encourages us to think about how today’s decisions will shape the heritage inherited by future generations.