OFF GRID COLLECTIVE – a (non-)random encounter of (dis)similar creators, (temporarily) connected by place, time, and material. Five parallel worlds finding shortcuts in spacetime in order to communicate a shared courage to leave behind established, predefined patterns historically reinforced by the glassmaking tradition that contributes to national identity in the Czech context.
Glass itself, as a material, also struggles to shed the aura of luxury, as its production is associated with high costs, energy intensity, and limited accessibility. The group of Czech-Slovak artists addresses this “burden” in their own individual ways. In their interpretation, glass becomes a living, mutable entity, granted autonomy within the creative process, and approached in a continuous dialogue.
Instead of formal perfection, it yields to gravity; its forms grow organically; it carries traces of tools or destruction; it captures geological processes and slows them down in time; it blurs the boundaries between functional design, art object, and space; it connects with the body in a fragile symbiosis as well as in subversive narratives.
Glass is both a subject and a medium—of reflection on its material nature, history, origin, technological processes, and disappearing glassworks; and at the same time a medium for personal statements, provocative outcries, and silence.
Ivana Zuskinová captures the continuous transformation of matter as the only constant, as an alchemical act. She freezes geological processes, water currents, and the pulsating life of fluid inner landscapes in time.
David Valner populates his imagined landscapes with the uncontrolled force of nature. His objects infect space with organic growth governed by its own rules, driven by living glass matter and gravity.
Mila Zila similarly approaches glass as an intuitive process that respects its natural behaviour as a metaphor of an authentic being. She combines objects with light, opening further dimensions of perception and the relationship between material and space.
In the work of Irena Czepcová, the boundary between object and space becomes blurred; through shifts in perspective, functional design transforms into sculptural object or spatial element. Strict forms become landscapes where the body leaves its trace, where glass discovers its corporeality.
Michaela Spružinová works with the body in a radically different way. She questions beauty stereotypes and consumer fetishes just as provocatively as she consciously rejects traditional technological processes. She composes “hobby” material in the form of glass beads into narrative images, serving as a medium for personal commentary and stories.
OFF GRID COLLECTIVE brings to Alcova five authorial approaches that do not form a homogeneous whole; instead, they occasionally converge and, in various layers, create their own network of relationships—(temporary), (dis)similar, (non-)random.
Multimedia artist working with glass waste through a demanding process, creating objects that reveal consumer fetishes and pop culture contradictions.
Visual artist exploring transformation of matter, sensory experience and fictional environments.
https://www.ivanazuskinova.sk/
Works with light, upcycling and experimental glass processes.
Works with sculptural glass objects and material-driven processes.
Explores glass through collectible design and natural systems.
Designer and educator focused on experimental design and critical thinking.