The Mirror

source: highlike

Work: The Mirror installation was created as a personal response to the oversaturation of visual stimuli.
The omnipresence of artificial images affects our perception of the world. We think of it as natural to spend a lot of time immersed in the ideas of someone else, often this type of existence actually prevails and the boundary between personal and extraneous, or even virtual and “real” becomes blurred.
For the project I used a mechanical billboard, but instead of an advertising image I covered it with mirrors, which created a minimalist installation and the sense and function of the object was shifted. Its original meaning is changed now – instead of presenting manipulative advertising information the object turns the viewer’s attention back to reality.
Even this view, however, is not the true one. Movement of individual segments causes a kind of collage picture. Reflection falls apart and integrates again in repeating cycles. Each new image is similar, like the previous one, but never the same.

The installation was presented at GASK Gallery, Kutna Hora and at the Royal Summer Palace at Prague Castle, Czech Republic.
Photographer: Jan Kudej
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: slantedmansion

KLÁRA WAS HUMBLE AND SHY WHEN WE FIRST MET. She surprised me by suggesting a beer across the road from her studio. She surprised me even more when she returned to work after our meeting.

A glass artist from Prague, Czech Republic, Klára first studied at AAAD for six years and went on to work for another three years as a glass artist before coming back to AAAD as an assistant in the kiln workshop and to the head of the glass studio, Rony Plesl. Glass-making isn’t a cheap process, so for Klára, having a studio and access to facilities, makes it the perfect job.

Klára still lives in the same area she grew up, just outside of Prague. She holds great admiration for her mum, who originally studied typography at AAAD, before turning to botany. Her mother is now studying her PhD in Amazonian medicinal plants and their possible use in medicine. She returns from South America every six months. Klára’s brother and aunt also reside in Peru and Argentina respectively. There is a strong connection between her family and Latin America. Klára has visited South America a number of times. She tells me of her experiences with Ayawaska, canoeing down a river for five days and coming back with a fungus infection that made her and two others extremely sick. In her half laugh, half giggle, she tells me she probably still has mushrooms growing inside of her because the fungus never quite dies.

While studying Glass at AAAD, Klára went on an exchange semester to a small town in Finland called Nuutajärvi. “The atmosphere was nice and calm and all around was really beautiful nature. I felt a bit like a hermit there. I had a lot of time to think. For me, travelling is always inspirational. And then I also like the moment when you come back home, not so much for homesickness, but for the new perspective you get. It is like coming back home with new eyes.”