The photographic exhibition " MI SMO SOLINARJI " / "NOI SIAMO SALINARI" / "SOMOS SALINEROS" / "NOUS SOMMES PALUDIERS" / "WE ARE SALTERS" is the result of the collaboration of three artists, our salt workers - a local Slovenian and two foreigners, a Frenchman and a Mexican.
It is a representation of the identity of the three people working in the salt pans and at the same time a symbol of the connection between man and nature.
The photographs are not just portraits of the workers or the landscape, but tell the story of the effort, passion and humility that accompany this ancient profession.
Each motif speaks of the sun's rays kissing the seawater, of hands picking up salt with deliberate movements and centuries of wisdom, and of silence broken only by the sound of the wind and the song of birds.
The exhibition is dedicated to our colleague Marko, who sadly left us far too soon.
About the authors of the exhibition:
Francisco Javier Betanzos Lozada was born in 1985 in Mexico City. He studied Communications at UAM-X (2008-2012), where he was trained in radio, journalism, photography and film.
He started working as a video editor and later as a content creator for the sports magazine "La Afición", where he worked from 2012 to 2019. During this time, he also worked with the strategy agency "ARTO" (2014-2016), where he led the development and editing of content for their YouTube series "All City Canvas", a program focused on street art. This experience allowed him to connect with many artists, document their creative processes and collaborate on their projects.
After 2016, he began to find a deeper meaning in storytelling and a calmer, more deliberate creative rhythm. Opportunities soon arose to work between the US and Mexico (2017-2018), enriching his cross-cultural perspective.
In 2019, he moved to Slovenia for personal reasons. Between 2019 and 2023, he considerably reduced his photographic activity, but it never completely ceased. In 2024, he took up a job as a salter and the experience of this unique traditional work reignited his passion for storytelling through visual media.
Vianney Lefebvre was born in 1984 in France. He lived his childhood in Tourcoing, where he began to draw and paint, surrounded by the works of the landscape painter Joseph Vives, a friend of his parents. For many years he put drawing and painting on the back burner, but in his twenties, he spontaneously returned to art.
Everything became clearer when he met the master Stevan Veljković (Lille-Belgrade), who became his mentor and taught him drawing and painting for several years. Vianney progressed rapidly and soon participated in numerous group exhibitions and became a private teacher in his studio.
In spring 2017, he left Lille and moved to Slovenia. The freedom he immediately felt in expressing himself through his art earned him the first prize - the Grand Redemption Prize - at ExTempore Piran 2017 in September. He opened a private studio in Izola with various international artists (Di Stefano, Belsky), which was operational in 2018.
He participates in group exhibitions in Slovenia, Italy and Croatia (Ljubljana art festival 2018, Obala International Art in Koper 2018, Velenelveno in Trieste 2020, Pop Up in Libertas Koper 2021, Memoria in Fonticus Grožnjan Gallery 2022), and also exhibits solo (Terme Galerija Strunjan 2018, Layer's Hisa Kranj 2019, Krpan's Dom Pivka 2020, Odeon Izola 2023, PLAC Izolanov 2023).
He currently lives, works and teaches in Pomjan (Koper), where his studio is open for commissioned visits.
Matjaž Lužnik was born in 1971 in Koper and lives on Parecag overlooking the salt pans. His first contact with saltpanning was at the age of 13 when he came to the saltpans to help a relative for two weeks.
After attending school in Kranj and Ljubljana, he found his way to the salt pans. He has been a Salter since 2003, and a photographer since the same year, and the salt pans are a photographic challenge and inspiration. He has already exhibited in Casermi in 2011, a photographic exhibition entitled: "Life and work in the salt pans". In the meantime, he went to study photography for a few years at the Srečka Kosovel School Centre in Sežana and returned to the salt pans, first as a salaryman in Fontanigge, then in Lero.
He is an amateur photographer, mainly taking landscape, portrait and people photographs. He also works with old photographic techniques. Most of the photographs in the exhibition were taken with the camera that everyone carries with them at all times (a phone), as the photographic saying goes, ''the best camera is the one you have with you'', but some of the photographs were also taken with a so-called real camera.
