pt. I: Modification | Models of Modification | 2019 | wood, plaster
untitled | Research material, Photography
pt. I: Modification | Models of Modification | 2019 | 15x20x3cm | wood, plaster, rubber band
pt. I: Modification | Models of Modification | 2019 | 13x23x3 cm | wood, plaster
"Missing Link" | Research material, Photography
pt. II: Guidance | 2019 | Installationview at Seoul Museum of Art, Nanji Exhibitionhall Collage and ink on Hanji-paper, tape
pt. III: Restraint | Installationview at Seoul Museum of Art, Nanji Exhibitionhall | 2019 | found objects, photography
[…]
What meaning can be obtained from something upon a closer encounter, and what territory of meaning will it construct? It is about what rules and narratives can be given to the world by a certain semantic network of things. Having meanings and values in a universal and macroscopic context, means working in the dimension of knowledge, which soon reshapes the world into accepted information, or images. This is how objects are incorporated into realms of reality intertwined with the sharp interests of users, within the relationship of knowledge and power.
This is not much different from cartography. Generally a map shows the structure and the configuration of the world with a fixed perspective and solid shape. Maps reorganize reality into a certain structured hierarchy, and the ratio and scale applied, soon visualizes the status of the object. Here, the hierarchy is invented according to the understanding and perspective on the world of the cartographer (more than that, in fact it is the perspective of those who commission the map), who has the power to organize the map. Thus, the form of a map reconstructs reality into visible images, tangible tools in hand, and comprehensible forms of knowledge.
Accordingly the image on the map is not of the real, but of the hierarchical realm.
[…]
In the work Variations on the Concept of Preservation (2019), Dvořák embraces the environment and condition around her beyond its physical appearance. She captures a point where its natural and artificial territories meet in disharmony. She grasps the rules and order that create the condition of the place and further enables its (allegedly) normal function by collecting the tension between the natural and the artificial in everyday life. For example, she takes photos of (actually) the quite un-natural encountering of different forms in the city, such as the structures and supplements temporarily attached on or inserted in street trees in order to extend their lifespan; she also discovers, selects, and collects objects from nature in daily life, such as dead tree branches. Also the artist brings them into a gallery to reconstruct the form in an artificial way to make them insecurely freestanding. Through this, Dvorák explores the form that is sustained unnaturally and artificially to perform a certain role in a social system, and the way what has fallen behind and failed to function remains. In other words, the way in which something has fallen out of cognitive systems still survives. Furthermore, she questions the form of its social existence and the meaning obtained by it.
The artist often attempts to set up two opposing axes to overthrow the hierarchy fortified by the logic of knowledge and power. On the basis of two axes such as the traditional and the contemporary, natural and synthetic, her work moves on from forms that function to obtain social meanings to other things that are missing, erased, and unnamed beneath the forms. Then her work begins to acquire meaning from the point where a crack starts to build on the existing hierarchy.
To compare her practice to map making: Her map is constantly renewed and changed by an active practice. It is a system that discovers the massive movement within the dynamic of a series of power and creates cracks in its operation. Moreover, Dvořák’s map is an event that occurs in a certain place based on very human emotions and feelings. There is a subtle breath and warmth in everyday life that is often overlooked. The logic of the territory she draws upon, does not comply with efficiency or rational structures of society. Therefore it is a kind of space that cannot be measured by the existing mapping system. It is obviously here, where there is a space that is made up of unnamed things, or one with a closer intimacy of an “us”, yet to be found on any map.
excerpt from the text "Cartography for the Nameless" written by KIM Sung Woo