The concluding conference of the Forte Cultura project in Kostrzyn nad Odra that lasted from November 24 to 27 was accompanied by a small but highly captivating exhibition in Berlin Gate - the visitors centre of the fortress museum Kostrzyn. The exhibited artworks presenting fortifications related art were realized by a member of the project team, Mr Aleksander Jankovic Potocnik, of the Ad Pirum institute in Logatec / Slovenia.

Titled "Borderlands", the exhibition encapsulates author's two interests: illustration and fortifications history. The artist explores the fascinating phenomena of fortified frontiers and their impact on people's lives and mode of thinking.

Alexander graduated in 1984 at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Ljubljana. Despite his formal education as an architect his main endeavor was illustrating and cartooning for the then major Slovenian periodicals. Between 1989 and 1994 he was living in Melbourne, Australia, where he completed a Graduate Diploma course in Animation and Interactive Multimedia. He spent the nineties working mostly in the advertising industry. In the year 2000 he was an animator for the Golden Drumstick Award winning team at the Golden Drum Festival.

The turning point in his career happened in October 1999, when drawing a tourist map of the municipality of Ziri he discovered the forgotten fortification system called the Rupnik Line - until then completely unknown to the general public. In the period 2011 – 2013 he was a vice-president of the Association of the Slovenian Fine Artists Societies. At present he is a member of the Art Council of the Fine Art Society of Ljubljana.

The graphic above: Borderland 2 - At the border river, a mighty tower in a citadel waits for the tourists arriving by ship, airship, or on the way. © A.J. Potocnik