Barbora Běhounková↓

About the work

There’s a Game, but I Don’t See the Players

Nature is an environment, and a metaphor. It never asks questions. Society resembles Nature, with fight deciding about one’s identity. The exhibition is conceived as a challenge. It represents a field of action with fixed points, where the set rules of the constellation trigger the game with the unspoken.

Where are our personal boundaries? When are we part of the world and when are we separated from it? And how should we defend our place in it?

We need to reflect our inner state in the outside world; as if confirming our radar, whatever it is. We choose from our surroundings what corresponds to our primary setting.

The title of Barbora Běhounková’s exhibition is a complaint and it at the same time opens a conversation with the viewer. It develops a dialogue via poetic language revolving around the phenomenon of boundaries, and explores it with a language play with the terms “game” and “nothing“. The play with meanings encourages participation, which leads to catharsis and faces questions such as “Am I a part of it, or do I still play the role of a non-participating witness, a visitor?” “Do I feel safe?” “Is what I see okay?”

Běhounková images are charcoal drawings on fabric. They are permeable and can breathe, like boundaries. The seal of our interpretation is imprinted into the space between them. Space remains dependent on our interpretation and is open to all prejudices, while experience is shaped by interpretation. The exhibition unmasks the interpretation risks: “The rocks do not play with me, nor do they attack, and yet I have the impression of attacking the abyss.” The exhibition reveals this as a game and offers itself as a platform for realizing one’s position in it.