The artwork located at Treskoňovej ulica near Kunsthalle Bratislava is concerned with the first meetings and memories of the artist and her friends. It consists of an object installation of ashtrays, as a dramatic evocation of the place where people interacted in public space. Part of the work is a sound recording, describing each of the situations from two points of view.
Do You Remember How We Met? artwork is concerned with the theme of individual memory. It consists of an object installation of ashtrays in public space, which is intended to be an impulse to recollection by the viewer. We think of memory as an ability that enables us to store experiences, items of knowledge and recollections. At the same time, it offers us subjective reproductions of the past and opportunities to reconstruct our memories. The starting point for Nikola Čižmárová is retroactive remembering and the procedures that are formed in memory.
"Nikola Čižmárová's installation draws attention to the importance of personal meetings, which were so limited, to the point of practical impossibility, during the pandemic. I appreciate the topicality of this work, the connection of the author's intimate experience with public events, and the fact that her work not only speaks to the critical nature of personal contact, but also invites passers-by to become a part of the artistic dialogue. It creates a real place where interpersonal interaction and encounters can begin." says Lýdia Pribišová, curator at Kunsthalle Bratislava.
One other benefit should be mentioned, which viewers may gain from author's need to reconstruct places and memories of her chance meetings in public space. Apart from triggering a process of recollection, Čižmárová attempts (via the spontaneous interactions of those going round the installation, their conscious or unconscious nearness) to create a space for potential acquaintance-making and new memories.
The work is a MA thesis developed at the Department of Intermedia, under the supervision of Jana Kapelová and Nina Vidovencová, and presented as part of a collaboration between Kunsthalle Bratislava and the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava.
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Nikola Čižmárová (*1995, Prešov) studied at the Faculty of Arts at the Technical University, Košice in Radovan Čerevka’s Studio of 3D Free Creativity (2015 – 2019), and since 2019 she has studied for the Masters Degree at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, in the Studio of Intermedia of Jana Kapelová and Nina Vidovencová. She has taken part in several group exhibitions: Queer, Tabačka Kulturfabrik in Košice (2017), Skafander in the Historical Town Hall of Levoča (2018), Interventions in Time at Bojnice Castle (2019). In 2020 she had a solo exhibition, I am Homesick for the Home I’ve Never Seen, in Kalaba in Bratislave. Since 2017 she has participated in Amnesty International Slovakia events as part of Living Library.
Cuartor: Katarína Jankechová
Duration: 26. 5. 2021 – 11. 7. 2021
Place: Kunsthalle EXT