ARTIST PROFILE

Lucia Papčová

  • Slovakia (b. 1987)
  • Currently in Bratislava, Slovakia.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I work with the space,time and sound of landscape to create an open ended work, which tries not to communicate any specific ideas formulable in language. Using mediums, which are described as having a certain exact relation to the commonly shared outside world, I adopt the limitations set by it as a part of the process. Image, or recording without adjustments, has then a direct link to the moment in past, to a certain cumulation of light - space - presence in the environment we share. What was before the camera is dimmed, obscured by the amount of information I let to be printed on film, or to be told in the story of moving image and sound. What interests me in the end is the space that forms in the mind of the spectator, who is invited to enter the image/ action/ experience.

Landscape is my co - worker, co - performer. The time spent in landscape also shapes my own perception - being outside a human constructed rhythm of the day.

In the time of integration of virtual reality into daily life, when losing the connection to physical world is slowly becoming a wide spread problem; with information being added to objects, spaces – I explore the strategy of removing the information, story, reference to a specific place and the potential of communication through abstract faculties of cognition in the mediums of sound, video and photography. Inviting the spectator to enter, to co - create, to stare, without distraction, on something he can't finish.

The project “I Woke Up In A Valley” is composed of video installations that infuse objects, found and donated. Each installation contains action which is prepared with assistance of person who then performs it. The initial concept for the action merges with the input from the performer - one person is asked to recall a certain moment in past, which was fatal, the other to formulate a word as a reaction to great injustice that ruined his life. The content of the fatal moment, or the word, remain hidden for the viewers so that another concept of present experiencing and relation between the viewers and the performer comes in front. Time and place for the action are chosen by the artist, with the aim that landscape co – performs and creates another context both for the persons acting and watching.

A memory, a statement, a story, remain uncovered, but present. What is left is aimed to open up other layers of reflection, allowing the spectator to import a more abstract and more personalized translation of the work, questioning the limits of passing the memories of collective trauma through abstract faculties of perception. Through simple actions, a reference is made to the past and present state of the society in which the performers live.