Crossing the Rubicon
digital print, video, object (plaster, bandages, fabric)
Bc. Alžbeta Kopisová
1st year graduate student
The Waves of Rubicon never asked if I was ready; they simply invited me todance. A dance where madness, playfulness, pain, joy, darkness, fear, guilt, unpredictability, and wildness continuously exchange dialogues. Life didn’t belong to anyone who wasn’t a player, and in this elementary game, which may seem too infantile, whimsical, and irrational to the impartial observer, I remain foremost in preserving my own integrity, realizing my own rebellion, my own revolt, and my own freedom with the aim of never betraying myself, my instinct, my intuition and certainly not my womb.
The semester project delves into the polarity between lines extending personal introspection during the period of pregnancy, joyful anticipation of offspring, where the fragility, delicacy of creative energy confronts the subsequent transformation into the primordial archetype of mother, directly juxtaposed with the acceptance of the intrusion of the fetus into my body.
The threatening moment of birth, demanding metaphorical annihilation as a necessary and absolute condition for the beginning of my daughter’s existence. This deconstruction and fragmentation become the starting point for a certain automated calibration and subsequent re-composition of the archaeology of personality, amidst chaos and loss of control, where madness is the root of humanity, without which there would be no mankind. The strongly present masculinity in the photographs is an ambivalent exploration of the boundary of collectively ingrained dualisms, disrupting stereotypical societal conventions and dogmas. Simultaneously, it serves as an indirect reference and background, shaping the personal dimension of the single mother status, ultimately demonstrating the nimbus of internal feminine strength.
