In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining

Matevž Čebašek (b. 1995, Slovenia) explores the fragile boundaries between personal memory, family heritage, and collective history.

 In his series In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining, Čebašek examines his grandmother’s experience with dementia to question how the past is remembered, inherited, and transformed. What does it mean to remember when individual memory begins to fade? 

Combining contemporary photography with intimate family archives and oral histories, the work constructs a layered counter-narrative of post-communist Slovenia, one where official historical records intersect with the unreliable, shifting nature of human memory.

“Dementia has been part of my life since I was born. From a very young age, I wondered about my grandfather's perception of reality, as he suffered from severe dementia and was unable to speak. In recent years, these questions have resurfaced while spending time with my grandmother, who now suffers from dementia herself. In an attempt to understand her, I started to explore her past as broadly as possible. I reflected on the memories she still carries, and she often considers them as the present, as well as the "post-memories" that have been passed on to me. 

I explored the life of a woman and her history in Slovenia through a multitude of archives that interact with photographs from the present. This work is a very intimate narrative that ranges from small to large histories which will remain scarred within my grandmother’s body.

By using personal stories to examine Slovenian collective history, the project rejects institutionalised narratives as ultimate truths and compares them with the fragility and unreliability of memory.”

Through a combination of photographic methods, oral histories, and archival materials, Čebašek creates a counter-archive that resists any single interpretation of the past. By weaving together official historical records, family recollections, and his own visual interpretations, he constructs a layered reality reflecting both the disruptions of dementia and the shifting societal landscapes of post-communist Slovenia. The project engages directly with key historical shifts, from wartime Germanisation and post-war Yugoslav industrialisation to migration, poverty, and independence.

At its core, the work questions what it means to remember when individual memory begins to fade. By placing quiet family narratives against institutional history, Čebašek examines how stories survive across generations, presenting contemporary Slovenian history not as a static truth, but as an ongoing construction shaped by retelling, neurodegeneration, and memory politics.

About Matevž Čebašek

Matevž Čebašek (Kranj, Slovenia, 1995) graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague with a Bachelor’s degree in Photography in 2024. For his graduation work he received a stipend from the Stiching tot Steun Foundation. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions across Europe. In 2025 he won Encounters da Imagem Award, was selected to exhibit at the festival Circulation(s) in 2026 and was one of the shortlisted photographers for the PHmuseum 2026 Photography Grant.

While working with photography, video, and text, he is currently developing his long-term project that explores the human condition and the connections between photography and memory. Within his documentary approach, he is constantly reflecting on the medium of photography itself, rethinking its relationship with objectivity and questioning what can be considered as an image of reality.