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“holo-”
is a collective, a holo-biont founded by Michaela Cagáňová and Kamila Valešová. Based on their fascination with how nature operates, they translate the post-anthropocentric values into, by them fabricated, hypothetical landscapes. They shift from the physical to the digital realm by means of 3D scanning. Taking a fragment from their environment and building a new narrative around it. (-a para-fiction).With similar logistics, they like to experiment with different media by mimicking the organic processes (such behaviour of contaminated soils or digestions of carnivore plants).
By observing the intersection of the human-made and the “so-called” natural, (which they think are inseparable) they play around and speculate about fictive, future landscapes where the audience can contemplate our relationship with nature and consider humans as an inseparable part of it.
(1999) (She/her)
Slovak multi-sensorial maker.Constantly being drawn to various media such as scents, organic
processes, and most recently glass; that which is uncontrollable, fragile, imperfect, and therefore vulnerable stands as her preferred realm / tone for making.
Her creative inspiration comes from the microscopic observations of the world. Be it vegetal processes, or the repetitive gestures of her grandma kneading the dough; she takes these fragments as a starting point and places them as metaphors in larger, macro contexts. In this sense, her work asks for contemplation and speculation of different scales.
She often seeks collaborations with scientists and botanists, as she finds the intersection of art and science utterly fascinating and mutually nurturing.
“Tailings”
Group show with Denis Kozerawski and Peter Kašpar.
Curated by Erik Vilím
Prints of 3D renders,
glass objects and soil poems
Šopa gallery in Košice
2023
Remains of the mining activity.
Tailings maps out a speculative landscape – one that seeks to illustrate an interspecies story between humans and plants. It takes its inspiration from
fieldwork conducted within central-eastern Slovakia, around a landfill site now contaminated with heavy metals.
Heavy metals are those that naturally encrust the earth. With the human acts of mining, they can become extracted and, in excess, become toxic. Tailings tells a story that pivots upon the ability of certain plants to phytoremediate the soil – that is, to pull the heavy metals from the soil, to bind them, to lessen their toxicity.
The protagonist of this story is the sunflower. Possessing the ability of phytoremediation, the sunflower is able to accumulate and tolerate heavy
metals – to lock them within their bodies, to withhold them from the vulnerabilities possessed by human bodies. [It was for this reason that sunflowers were
employed in the wake of the Chernobyl catastrophe.]
Illustrating this strength of the sunflower, this installation offers a way to reconsider the hierarchy that we humans have constructed in relation to plants – a reconsideration that prompts us to question whether plants are as vulnerable as we, within our constructions, believe them to be.
Through a process of speculation, this installation aims at a sensible shift – from a sensibility that is humano-centric towards one that is vegetal – to show, that
is, how an interspecies collaboration can afford the sensations for approaching environmental catastrophes within a different light.
Tailings flirts with an idea of returning the power dynamic between humans and other species to where it might belong.
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“FOSSORA”
Visual for the exhibition group exhibition Fossora , inspired by Gall wasps.
3D scan of the ceiling relief and a scan of oak galls.
GMB in Bratislava
2023
Katarína Bajkayová, Šimon Chovan, András Cséfalvay, Katarína Hrušková, Jaroslav Kyša, Paula Malinowska, Lucie Svoboda Mičíková, Svätopluk Mikyta, Lucie Papčová, Rastislav Sedlačík, Denisa Slavkovská, Adam Šakový
3D scan of the ceiling relief at Mirbach Palace.
The concept was inspired by Gall wasps, ( Cynipidae ) insect that seeks certain plants that serve as a carrier for their larva. The galls are being formed after gall wasp lays eggs into the vegetal tissue out of which galls are gonna form. It is a chemically induced distortion of the vegetal tissue. Basically a small larval incubator.
Galls do no parasite on the plants and they are harmless for the plant itself.
Gall wasps are partly Parthenogenesis, ( asexual) making some generations of gall wasps exclusively female and making male wasp basically useless. These generations are however, alternating.
There are several species of galls, this one specifically is Andricus quercuscalicis - oak gall.
From the series
Spatial poem for
“Babička”
Flour, potato dough 2022
From the series
Borosilicate glass
Istanbul 2 0 2 2
“Digestions”
Borosilicate glass
Istanbul 2 0 2 2
The Spiral of hair on the tongue
From the series
“Ulirada Satinge”
COMBUSTIONS
This publication was
co-created through
a mutually enriching dialog.
It contains two separate
essays written by two
separate authors, that are alternating page by page and create a dialog within the publication itself.
The essays can work
independently as well as meged together,
blurring the idea of ownership.
w/Angelina Nonaj
2 0 2 1
