Research Catalogue

This exposition gathers a series of visual and linguistic investigations in which signs, form, and the space between them construct expressions that invite multiple interpretations. Here, propositions are understood as attempts, movements, and modes of thought. Between sign and form, a space emerges where meaning can be brought into play – where rhythm, structure, wonder and quietness may interact as an expanded practice of seeing, reading, and listening.

Exam Context as collaborator December 2025 - Makor

This project combines artistic and anthropological research on spontaneous gardening in open public space, predominantly in Brno, CZ. The team, mostly comprising recent graduates and graduate students of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Brno University of Technology, chose gardens and plantings which were, in most cases, rather exceptional. Unlike most typical front gardens, the ones in this study are somehow peculiar, due to their location, their composition and planting schemes, their scale, or methods of those who garden there. The anthropologists on the team analyzed a Facebook group dedicated to street gardening and conducted several interviews, while the artistic team responded to particular places with which they interacted. Some results of this research have been presented to the public in the form of an application comprising an audioguide and an interactive map; this exposition in the Research catalogue documents some of these findings. The team Barbora Lungová is a visual artist and has taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Brno University of Technology since 2007. Her field of practice is painting and art projects focusing on plants, gardening, and queerness. She is the coordinator of the Partisans with a Hoe project. Lucia Bergamaschi is a visual artist working across the media of photography, sound, and installation. She earned an MA in Fine Art at Università Iuav di Venezia and an MA in Law at Università di Bologna. She is currently finishing her MA studies at the FFA BUT. Nela Maruškevičová combines painting, installations, and glass in her artistic practice. She is a 2023 graduate of the FFA BUT. Kateřina Konvalinová is a visual artist interested in the overlapping spaces of art, communal life, farming, and ritual. She earned her MA in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and is currently a doctoral student at the FFA BUT. Iva Balcaříková is a graphic designer and a member of the team behind the curated audio walks created by Galerie Art in Brno. She is currently finishing her MA studies at the FFA BUT. Hana Drštičková is a visual artist and a social anthropologist interested in environmental and queer topics. She graduated with an MA in Fine Arts from the FFA BUT in 2022 and with a BA in social anthropology from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Masaryk University and is currently a doctoral student at the Gender Studies Department of Charles University in Prague. Anastasia Blokhina is a social anthropologist who graduated with an MA tfrom the Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University in 2022. Polyna Davydenko is a photographer and a video artist who documents social and environmental issues in her work, most recently those connected with the war in Ukraine. Filip Dušek is a media artist who studied at the Department of Photography at the FFA BUT. The project was conducted under the Specific Research FaVU-S-23-8441 Program.

In this exposition, I explore my artistic practice based on collaborations between female folk singers in Finland and Bulgaria from 2018 to 2022. The artistic material of the exposition consists of a music video trilogy (2019, 2020 and 2022) based on my compositions and arrangements in the solo album Nani (2020), produced in cooperation with the younger generation of the Bulgarian women's choir, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. In addition to the collaborative artistic practice, I interviewed six of the Bulgarian singers. Insights from the data gathered in these ethnographic interviews are intertwined with the analysis of the artistic practice. Throughout the artistic and ethnographic research processes, I applied a feminist intersectional pedagogical approach by focusing particularly on the power relations and the question of female agency in the arts and wider society. In this exposition, I argue that the incorporation of intersectional feminist perspectives in transnational artistic work can contribute to both artistic practice and transnational interactions in ways that may strengthen women's agency in the folk music field of their respective cultural and social environments. Feminist folk music composition was applied at all stages of the artistic and research work. By highlighting the stories, voices, and bodies of women of different ages and cultural locations, the artistic practice represented the construction of counter-myths and transgenerationality. In addition, an intersectional feminist approach helped to identify the power relations involved in transnational collaboration, particularly regarding economic inequality and the roles and different opportunities of women musicians in Finland and Bulgaria. Download Accessible PDF

ES: ¿Existe un enfoque, principio o disposición de la investigación artística que dé unidad a los elementos heterogéneos que la conforman (diferentes procedencias disciplinares y enfoques epistemológicos) y le confiera carácter propio? Ese proceder, se propone aquí, es el especulativo. Desde la danza y mediante ejercicios coreográficos, se quiere hallar descripción de lo que sería una especulación estética, aquella que consideraría al acto de creación como parte del proceso del pensar. Con tal propósito, se desarrolla una propuesta acerca del amor y, específicamente, el eros, entendido como disposición frente a lo que se quiere investigar; añadiendo que esta disposición es también la fuerza que reúne todos los aspectos de la investigación. La acción especulativa estética sería el proceder investigativo del amor que une la dimensión poiética (creativa-imaginativa) y la gnoseológica en la investigación en las artes. EN: Is there an approach, principle or disposition of artistic research that gives unity to the heterogeneous elements that comprise it (different disciplinary origins and epistemological approaches) and gives it its own character? This procedure, it is proposed here, is speculative. From dance and through choreographic exercises, we seek to find a description of what would be an aesthetic speculation, one that would consider the act of creation as part of the thinking process. To this end, a proposal is developed about love and, specifically, eros, understood as a disposition towards what we want to investigate; adding that this disposition is also the force that brings together all aspects of research. The aesthetic speculative action would be the investigative procedure of love that unites the poietic (creative-imaginative) and gnoseological dimensions in research in the arts. Download Accessible PDF

The concept of non-hierarchical collaboration in score-based music offers a new perspective on the score and the instrument as distinct agents within the creative process. This case study, based on my co-creative collaboration with composer Francisco Corthey, explores how my relationship with the instrument – and other experiential factors – shaped the development of the composition, addressed ethical questions surrounding collaboration, and contributed to the production of musical meaning in a work presented to me as a notated score. By sharing control over musical parameters with my instrument and body – and by deliberately unlearning aspects of my instrumental technique – I aimed to cultivate a practice specific to this work, one that treats the musical composition as a site- and context-responsive event. This approach led me to examine how elements such as performance context, venue, and audience affect the emergence of meaning and inform my evolving performance strategies, through processes of responsiveness and an awareness of fragility as a generative force. Several of these reflections are gathered in the Shared Space model – an ongoing artistic experiment that explores inclusive, responsive practices within concert settings. Download Accessible PDF