‘The bird in the bush: the covered and the exposed in Istria’s sexuality ‘ is a big exhibition project born from the teamwork between museums of Istria. It is hosted in the museum and gallery venue in the Church of the Sacred Hearts in Pula until 31st October 2017.

The exhibition displays artefacts going from the period of Roman Empire up to the present day and features the male and female way of accepting the topic of sex and sexuality, openness and tightness of Istria, eros and eroticism in Istria, from ancient times to the present day. We are honored some of the posters Studio Sonda created for the Love and Erotic Festival in Vrsar (Casanova Fest) are being part of such a great and valuable project.

The posters are the results of ten years of work for a festival that speaks about love and eroticism in a sensitive and never explicit way. As such, the aim of the poster is to maintain both its innuendo and playfulness, which are distinctive features of falling in love and seducing, and at the same time to avoid any allusion to pornography. Since the place significantly determines the character of the festival, poster’s outputs are always a combination of symbols characteristic of Vrsar, but also a play on ambiguous interpretation that we relate to Casanova’s seduction game.

The original name of the exhibition ‘Gajba i tić’ (The bird in the bush), being a metaphor related to male and female genitalia, is very well known from local folk songs. Our Casanovafest posters abound with birds and bushes, or maybe none of them, which depends of the viewer’s interpretation.

Authors of the exhibition are the designer Mauricio Ferlin and the curators Tajana Ujčić and Katarina Marić. Project holders are the Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria and the Archaeological Museum of Istria.