SHORT BIO
Anna Mikušková grew up in the Czech Republic and is currently based in Alaska. She received an MA in English language and literature from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic and an MFA in Photography and Related Media from the Rochester Institute of Technology in NY. Before turning to visual art, Mikušková worked in the field of human rights focusing on services for immigrants and refugees. Her work frequently turns to themes of home, belonging, and the relationships we form with the environments we inhabit.
Her photographs and artist books have been exhibited nationally and internationally including the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts and the Anchorage Museum in Alaska. In 2022, she was included in the 2022 Silver List. Her essays were published in The Maine Arts Journal and in the British journal On Landscape. Currently, Mikušková teaches photography classes at the Wrangell Mountain Center in McCarthy, Alaska.
PROPOSED WORK
During the Walking as Practice, BKN Artist Residency Mikušková plans to continue her photographic exploration of the landscapes of the countries of the circumpolar North. Using primarily analog cameras and the process of walking, she will engage with the landscape of Björkö focusing on its boreal forests. The resulting images and datascapes (mapped routes of her walks) will become part of the project Not Far From Here, which reflects her experience of walking in the landscapes of the High North and addresses the themes of time, visual representation, and human activity on our planet. Additionally, while at BKN, Mikušková hopes to further integrate walking into her artistic practice and, through joint walks, conversations, and exchange sessions, deepen her knowledge of the countries of the circumpolar North and their unique perspectives and challenges.
mikuphoto.com
Studio: 3
Oct 2-16
10.2.
I first notice the sky. An ocean of rich deep blue rising above the silhouettes of trees and farmhouses. It is quicky turning black until all I can see through the window is my own reflection staring back.
The only sound I hear is the gentle swish of wheels when they touch the narrow road running deep into the Swedish countryside.
10.7.
On the rocks of Naskubben, the Eastern edge of Bjorko where the shore gives way to the sea. There is an orange wind warning. Tall waves beat against the ledges where I stand. The narrow path where I walked only a day before is flooded. The birch trees sway wildly with the wind.I too have to crouch down; the gusts of wind are too strong to keep balance on the slippery rocks. I get back up, walk as far as I dare, my face exposed to the warm wind, to the roaring sea.
This a place that invites stories, where you let the door open to the past, a place where your ancestors accompany you on your walks as Ami teaches us during her slow deliberate steps. Suriashi. A word like a whisper, like a caress on my skin, like the sound of the wind high in the birch trees, like Bjorko, so ancient in its wisdom contained in the changing seasons, in the proximity to the ocean, in the hardiness of the fishermen and farmers that once lived and worked its land and sea. And yet, so vulnerable in the changing times. How do we keep a small community thriving? How do we prepare for future when the danger comes floating deep in the waters of the Baltic Sea?
10.29.
I feel a compulsive need to track my steps, to give shape to the route I take, see the trajectory my body makes when it moves through space. A path, a loop, a line. I move through Björkö in a haphazard manner without a plan or a method, guided by instinct, by a hidden need to be in the forest or near the water. Most often I go to the sea.
Weeks after I leave, I can still feel Björkö in my body, sense the roughness of the spruce bark in my fingers, smell the rich pungent odor of the sea, feel the way my body jolted when I was riding a bicycle through the forest paths. The gusts of wind knocking me off balance, my hair dancing, flying in front of my eyes and the camera lens, the slippery spongy texture of the lichen under my feet as they covered a swelling of earth creating a small globe. Their own complex but fragile universe.
