Kristina Fingerlandová:
Reports from Oikos: Alma,
Diamon, Melogs and Gulmas
15. 12. 2021 – 9. 1. 2022
opening 14. 12. 2021 from 6 pm
curator: Eva Koťátková
Welcome to Oikos. Oikos is a house that breaths and purrs. Branches are growing through this house, and, together with its inhabitants, they maintain the flow. There is a great variety of inhabitants that include ogres, baldheaded mermaids, amoebas, crows with anthracitic coats, Johan, inseparable twins, Erlenah, who locks the door with a chain, Ama, who knows all the species of healing herbs, Pragma, who hides her problems under the carpet, Tarvan with two fish tails, but also Diamon, a monster, who takes on the image of our worst anxieties and fears. Alma, the author this exhibition and book, also lives there. Oikos is a place, where family members get mythical names and where their abilities, as well as daily rituals are elevated. Oikos is an interspace where one can dream and truly feel, and where one can be with those who are no longer here. Oikos is a refuge, as well as an island of defiance. One of the ways this is manifested, is in the language its inhabitants speak. With the help of clever new word formations, they try to separate from the normativity of language as an instrument of disassociation and oppression. Oikos also resists through the values it professes and that it abides as the house regulations. These include: care, empathy, importance of sharing, and listening to the stories and experiences of others. It insists that our senses must remain open, for us not to lose contact with our surroundings and others, and to avoid being imprisoned and/or solitary in our own bodies. It illustrates the importance of the diversity of our world thanks to the creatures who inhabit it and thanks to the relationships they build without bias. It illustrates how key imagination is in our lives, not as the means of useless or silly dreaming, but as the means of emancipation and change, as a way to deepen our perception of the world and being with others. And it also illustrates how important it is to express emotions, including those that some can perceive as a sign of weakness, because it is thanks to these that we can better connect. Dear inhabitants of Oikos, dear Alma, thank you for the invitation. Your house-world, with all its scars and cracks, porous walls and shared space, as well as hideaways for the dreaming minds of everyone without discrimination, is very dear to me.
Eva Koťátková
The program of the Jeleni Gallery is possible through kind support of Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Prague City Council, State Fund of Culture of the Czech Republic, City District Prague 7, GESTOR – The Union for the Protection of Authorship
Partners: Kostka stav
Media support: ArtMap, jlbjlt.net, UMA: You Make Art
