Born: 1993, Slovakia
Profession: Visula Artist
Lives and works: Trnava, Slovakia
PHOTOPIA
Ruins are remnants of the past, outsiders of the present, and remain a question of the future. Are these columns merely a nostalgic visions of a utopian landscape, or are they a warning of a future in which humanity has become obsolete? I ask this question at a time when it becomes increasingly clear that we must begin to think about the post‑Anthropocene.
The existence of numerous similar sites across the post‑industrial Eastern Bloc proves that these places are imbued with tension between collective hope and historical trauma: between utopia and its transformation into totalitarianism. Ruins are tangible fragments of history. They attract us and permanently occupy our imagination, our past, and most likely our future. As if they were rooted within us—not only the ruins themselves but also what remains of them: unfulfilled dreams. The sight of the abandoned, towering concrete columns evoked a strong sense of anachronism in me. They seemed to exist outside of time, removed from the historical flow. They are physical artefacts awaiting for the new reinterpretation to give them meaning. Interpretation thus becomes a way of survival.
Photopia is long-term artistic research project investigating the fine line between visibility and invisibility, existence and nonexistence, places and non-places, physical presence and dematerialization. It explores the blending of timeframes, their suspension and denial, the impossibility of defining the future, and the idealization mediated by the most widely used medium of today – photography. Photopia is about photography and utopia.
