Layers (Priestory spomínania)
Layers (Priestory spomínania) is a project based on the artistic research that explores the Stalin’s monument. The resulting project is a photobook mapping the rebirth of the totalitarian era by working with archival materials related to the construction of the monument, its unveiling, and its explosion. It traces the fate of the author Otakar Švec, and records the key moments of the aforementioned territory, including the research of Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The aim of the publication is to show that post-communist, (or post-socialist/post-totalitarian), countries are unable to deal with their own history. Elements of totalitarianism seem to be present in between the lines of everyday reality, whether we find them in people's behavior or problematic sites.
Book of archive photographs, Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Slovak National Gallery (Ales Votava archive), National Archives in Prague, author’s manipulated scans and photographsThe Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Prague, CZ
Visuals were used in collaboration with Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague
Based on the ritual practices that were conducted in the space of the Stalin's monument, I decided to create several performative situations that took place on the dates of 4.2, 7.2, 9.2, 23.2. They lasted for several hours, most of the people passing by ignored these rituals or looked at them and moved on. Performances were unannounced, I was choosing symbolic objects from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, such as coal or stones. They were documented by the Ukrainian artist Kateryna Khramtsova, with the aim of returning to the performances of the past, especially to the minimalist performances of the 1970s in Prague, and to experience the injustice of the totalitarian regimes on one's own skin. Totalitarian practices have been maintained and continue to this day, despite us being silent about them. Furthermore, I interviewed Kateryna Khramtsova due to my interest in her experience of the Soviet propaganda.
Interview can be found here.
Letna, area around the former Stalin’s monument and current Metronome statue, Prague, CZ
Layers (Priestory traumy)
Layers (Priestory traumy) is a follow up project to Layers (Priestory spomínania). It serves as a 5-day durational performance that consists of the artist’s institutionally critical practice. During the performance, the artist critically evaluates the publication Layers (Priestory spomínania) and pulls out the fragments from the publication, tears, cuts, and creates an installation in space by layering the material from the pages of the book. The entire exhibition takes place over a period of two weeks at the Jewish cemetery in Telč, where the artist lives in the cemetery in the former ceremonial hall, without electricity and running water.
The performance follows the line of the five days (this rule was however broken by the author herself and extended into more days). The artist subjects the work to a critique, through a technique of destruction and subsequent reconstruction of her trauma. In addition to the institutional critique, the installation also highlights the mechanisms of totality. These paradoxically affect the artists that attempt to critically name the totalitarian themes. The installation is accompanied by a photograph from the performance Layers (5 minutes) in which the artist decided to symbolically lie down for five minutes in the middle of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, located on Hannah Arendt Straße, in order to pay tribute to the memory of these victims.
The constantly-changing installation in progress/various moments
Torn pages from the book Layers, red thread and needles, pins, frame found in the basement of the cemetery, spider web, tree trunks and branches found in the cemetery, Jewish cemetery, Telč, CZ