Bird of Hope for Peace
Eva Petrič 03.11.2026 - 07.31.2026 Narthex Gallery
Bird of Hope for Peace is an interdisciplinary art installation that brings together the visual language of sculpture and the symbolic power of flight to convey a universal message of peace, compassion, and renewal. The artwork—a stylized bird composed of nearly one thousand Roses of Hope—embodies resilience and interconnectedness among people and nations. The lace roses were created in eleven countries by lacemakers responding to an open call initiated by the artist Eva Petrič in collaboration with the Idrija Lace School and the Idrija Tourist Board, using recycled handmade lace. Donated to the artist during the Idrija Lace Festival 2024, the roses were transformed by Petrič into a collective artwork. The work transforms individual gestures of care and traditional craftsmanship into a shared artistic statement about solidarity, connection, and the fragile possibility of peace.
Bird of Hope for Peace is a messenger of empathy: fragile yet luminous light enough to remind us that peace, like air, sustains life only when it is shared.
About Eva Petrič
Eva Petrič works between Vienna, New York, and Ljubljana across photography, video, installation, performance, sound, and literature. She graduated in psychology and visual arts from Webster University in Vienna (2005) and received an MFA in New Media from the Transart Institute Berlin / Danube University Krems (2010).
She has received numerous international awards, including the Prof. Hamano Special Award at the Utazu Art Award Biennial in Japan (2025), the Hubert Sielecki Prize for Video in Vienna (2024), multiple awards from the Utazu Art Award Biennial, the Best Performance Art Award and Best of Ten Years Award at the United Solo Festival in New York, and the Grand Prix of the 6th International Festival of Fine Arts in Kranj, Slovenia. In 2010, she was also awarded the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation scholarship.
Her work has been presented in over 130 solo and more than 150 group exhibitions worldwide. Petrič has realized major installations and presentations in prominent public and institutional contexts, including the United Nations General Assembly in New York (World Embryo, 2018), the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York (Collective Heart, 2019), St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna (Human Cocoon, 2023), and the Kollegienkirche in Salzburg (I Am an Earthling – What Are You?, 2025).
Her project Earthling Tattoo Seal was part of a microgravity camera-lens experiment aboard the International Space Station (2022–2023) and will travel in miniature form to the Moon in 2026 as part of the LifeShip Mission. Her works are permanently installed in public spaces in Ljubljana and Beričevo, In Nairobi, Kenya, her six-meter sculpture Konduit Empathy is permanently installed as an interface between satellite observation and the public, and in New York she has created several large-scale site-specific works, including Tree of Life – Totem for Humanity for the Austrian Cultural Forum.
Eva Petrič is also the author of several books, published and translated into multiple languages.
