Walking straight on a crooked path

Galerie výtvarného umění v Náchodě (GVUN), Nachod, Czechia
15.04. - 11.06.2023
Curated by Lena Johanna Reisner
The landscapes we move through affect the landscapes we find within ourselves. Art and culture serve as mediators between those inner and outer worlds, which are woven together in an intricate web of visual culture, embodied experience, and material reality.  „Walking Straight on a Crooked Path“ explores the resonances between those inner and outer landscapes, as well as the potential of visual art to create common ground on which to negotiate individual and collective experiences. 
A road is a planned structure, often paved with asphalt or gravel. A path, on the other hand, can be created by the act of walking itself. When many bodies move in the footsteps of others, paths can emerge in direct response to the topography of a landscape and the desires of the bodies moving through it. When we trace the poetry of a line in a landscape, what can we learn about the needs of the human and other-than-human actors who shape it? How do we negotiate our individual and collective paths in dialogue with the forms and features of the environment in which we live?
The collaborative exhibition with students from Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel (DE) and The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (CZ) under the direction of Antje Majewski, Adéla Součková, and Milan Mikuláštík was curated by Lena Johanna Reisner. The exhibition was accompanied by a series of performative events curated by Kris Lukomski.

Mecardonia
2023
Oil on linen
190 x 150 cm