Alba is an island. It is a symbol of hope and longing that celebrates difference and unusualness. It is a metaphor for the (un)achievable desire for comprehensive change in society.

Alba is the title of a silent book (a book without words) in the making, created by Nea Likar from Celje. It is also the title of an exhibition of illustrations, sketches, illustrated samples and pages from the book in the making. The exhibition represents the first public insight into the work, with attention focused primarily on the artist’s creative process of generating ideas and stories, illustrated in an insightful visual language. The individual illustrations appear either on their own or in sets creating a rounded whole, but the most important role of the exhibition is to shed light on the process of creation of the characters, motifs and fragments of the narrative, to underline the reflection and the critical approach that the artist establishes with regard to the work, to herself and to her surroundings.

Alba tells the story of an island inhabited by albino and endangered animal and plant species that are very vulnerable. With its muted colour palette and chromatic rawness, the story of a journey to Alba serves as a diary sketch from a dream that, through symbols, semiotic hints and textured maps, is marked by the value of acceptance and by the idea of difference and our relationship to it. In her works, the artist often explores our relationship to the animal world and nature, reminding us of the quality of cohabitation, and resolutely but subtly incorporating socially critical content into her works.