Martina Malinová↓

About the work

Collective Exploration of a Ritual

#community #exploration #ritual #performance #correspondence

What is your graduation work about?

My graduation serves me as the ultimate opportunity to explore; explore something in myself and others – the rest. The way to explore oneself is conceiving space and time where one opens up, slows down, becomes present, empties, and creates: a ritual.

I have put together a 20-people collective who explore rituals via making and performance. We have never met in time and space; it is all about correspondence. Every month, I send them envelopes with a ritual assignment. Boxes with artifacts return, and I seek their form, an artistic output. The first ritual was Energy. We would sort out things, sentiments, and soul dumps for several months. I burnt my pile for my 36th birthday, 32 kilos of it. I made a jewel from the ashes dropped from 20 envelopes a month later.

I return to the matter. I work with concrete, paper, clay, epoxy, and ash. And I have 19 individuals cooperating, some of whom I will never meet.

What do you do besides your graduation work?

I make films bordering on a documentary. I dream of employing video to amplify the voice of those unheard and unseen by society. I make DIY magazines – zines. I like material; it gives me a break from online content. Less and less, and yet still with love, I write poetry. More and more, and still humbly, I make objects and installations. I am pampering a child. I am learning to live an adult life.

In what conditions would you like to work on your graduation work?

It would be great if my graduation work developed under equal and dignified conditions. I would like to have a safe space, a supportive environment, have intimate dialogues and enough resources (time), and receive thoughtful critique and inspiration from others; to work outside of patriarchy and capitalism. And also hope to make a good living from my work after graduation and gain the legal status of a female artist, as it is sorely lacking in the Czech Republic.

What would you imagine to be an alternative culmination of your studies at AVU, in place of the defense of your graduation work?

I would enjoy doing something collective and collaborative across studios – to learn who we have become at AVU and how we can use that collectively. I would also like to complete my studies with a joint event outside the AVU space.