DIG DEEP: Between Material and Performance. Roundtable Discussion

Barbora Kundračíková (Olomouc Museum of Art – Central European Forum) DIG DEEP: Between Material and Performance. Roundtable Discussion with the artists Alicja Bielawska, Sári Ember, Habima Fuchs, and Monika Pascoe Mikyšková This roundtable discussion prepared under the auspices of the Olomouc Museum of Art – Central European Forum presents the research project led between 2022 and 2023. It focuses on the formation of local – Central European – cultural and social memory and uses artistic research as an initial strategy. Selected artists – Alicja Bielawska (PL), Sári Ember (HU), Habima Fuchs (CZ), Monika Pascoe Mikyšková (SK), and Zoya Laktionova (UA) – share the interest in the concept of “introspection” – a deep exploration of various aspects of human consciousness in the sense of “world-making”, including memory, imagination, perception of space, and one’s own body. Although initially a personal one, this exploration ultimately proves to be an expression of a collective experience that pushes the limits of sharing and communication even beyond the human domain. Artists test, articulate, and present different perspectives on the issue of the disparity between personal and collective history turning to what they know best – the nature of the material, the structure of the physical world, and aspects of ritual practices. The project recognizes and highlights the importance of local creative traditions. Although it does not aim to present any “feminine” aesthetic, given the subject matter, it quite naturally articulates this issue as well. In doing so, it uses the concept of “materiality” or “performativity”. The resulting formation, at the center of which is a seemingly peripheral physical or metaphysical element, becomes a complex and ever-changing network of actors and their relationships. Barbora Kundračíková is head of modern art collections in the Olomouc Museum of Art – Central European Forum (SEFO) and an assistant professor at the Department of Art History at Palacký University in Olomouc. Her areas of interest include 20th and 21st-century European visual art, technical representations, art history methodology, and analytical approaches to aesthetics. Alicja Bielawska (1980, PL) works with sculpture and drawing. Her works focus on the material sphere of everyday life and the relationship between objects, interiors, and memories. She brings elements of choreography and performance into her work. Sárí Ember (1985, HU) focuses in her artistic practice on questions related to the nature of representation, working primarily with the medium of installation. Through the symbolic values of noble materials and an archetypal, semi-abstract motif set, she seeks to explore shared experiences. Habima Fuchs (1977, CZ) has long been revising the established mechanisms and traditional existential, philosophical, or metaphysical turns we rely on to understand the world we live in. The symbols and motifs she reflects and materializes in this process come from different cultures and periods, from the framework of Christian iconography and oriental religious contexts. Monika Pascoe Mikyšková (1983, SK) works with monumental watercolor painting and plant and “mineral” objects. Her installations are reminiscent of herbarium prints, moldings and casts combined with live houseplants. Questions of human physicality and emotional experience collide with the inhuman temporality of plants – captured and displayed, included in botanical collections, and artificially petrified through decorative intervention. GRENZEN ÜBERSCHREITEN: Mitteleuropäische Künstlerinnen und Designerinnen Internationales Symposium im Rahmen der Ausstellung: STERNE, FEDERN, QUASTEN. Die Wiener-Werkstätte-Künstlerin Felice Rix-Ueno (1893–1967 Fr, 26.1.2024 MAK – Musuem für angewandte Kunst Wien Eine Veranstaltung konzipiert von Elana Shapira (Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien) und Anne-Katrin Rossberg (MAK) in Kooperation mit Barbora Kundračíková (Olomouc Museum of Art – Central European Forum). https://www.mak.at/grenzen - - - - - - - - - - - - - https://www.instagram.com/mak_vienna https://www.facebook.com/MAKVienna http://blog.mak.at