Stribor is a transmedia artwork rooted in ancient Croatian myth, reimagining the forest spirit Stribor as a guardian of future worlds. Drawing from oral traditions passed down through generations, the work blends mythology, ecological memory, and speculative storytelling. Created with living algae biomaterials and digital technologies, Stribor bridges ancestral wisdom and imagined futures, reflecting on resilience, interspecies collaboration, and intergenerational memory. Part of the Future Tales of Long Ago series, the artwork combines human and geological time, inviting viewers to see myth and fictioning as tools for world-building, resistance, and renewal.

ABOUT THE ARTIST Vladimir Kanic is a transdisciplinary artist whose living algae installations transform spectators’ breath into oxygen, creating participatory ecosystems that embody the possibilities of interspecies collaboration. Informed by his maritime heritage and free diving experience, Kanic’s practice uses breath as both material and method for creating art, accessing cultural, ancestral and geological memories embedded within algae – Earth’s principal carbon sinks, responsible for producing approximately 60% of the planet’s oxygen. Kanic’s work envisions a symbiotic future where living artworks serve as both ecological interventions and world-building frameworks for socioecological resilience and repair. Collaborating with algae as both artistic medium and carbon capture mechanism, his practice is grounded in ecofeminist methodologies and posthumanist inquiry, drawing on thinkers like Donna Haraway to cultivate responsibility that “feels both for the human and the non-human.” Recipient of the Governor General’s Academic Medal, Kanic holds an MFA from York University. Alongside his visual arts practice, he is also an award-winning filmmaker and an alum of the Locarno Film Academy and Berlinale Talents. His films and artworks have been exhibited and recognized internationally.