PERSONAL CODE

installation, Wonderful place, Cvernovka Gallery / Polish Institute, Bratislava, Slovakia 2012

PERSONAL CODE project is a personal reflection on the problem of individual identity and factors determining it. The notion of identification is formulated through the act of moving the private space of author’s memory into the public sphere. The relation arising between a recollection and perception is a pretext for exposing the mechanisms conditioning the way individuals function. Man according to Aristotle’s theory is born as a “blank slate”, which becomes inscribed only in the course of life and gathering experience. It is exactly the passing of time, upbringing and surrounding in which one grows that decides about the structure of one’s personality, shape and character of identity’s personal code. PERSONAL CODE project is a metaphoric illustration of human’s structure, as constructed by the author on the basis of personal recollections from childhood. The leading motive is a lace napkin, a subtle tissue of white threads, a synonym of the title code. A recollection of a family home, through the evocation of the symbol of a lace napkin, presents the relation between memory and place /A Miraculous Place – “Childhood Homeland ”/. The presented napkin becomes a pretext for showing people and places. It consists of decorative ornaments interlaced with realistic motifs, scrap’s of the author’s memory. A multiplied motif – cut-out in plastic, drawn on a stone, embroidered on canvas, printed on paper – makes up a multilayered installation. Its monumentality and certain automatism of recording produce a slightly psychedelic atmosphere, and can even suggest a surreal, ghostly dream.