If Homunkulus Had A House

Artist Monika Gabriela Dorniak's works draw a phenomenological map, and guide a journey through the states of being human in a body that positions itself between natural and artificial charts of the world. In the past decade, her performances, workshops, installations, videos and sculptures have been her transformable laboratory, and her multi-media works, inspired by her in-depth research of the miracle of being alive, reflect on overstimulation and worsening cultural separation. The objects of the exhibition reflect different stages of her research in psychology, sociology and anatomy; some appeared in previous performances, or are ongoing in performance. Dorniak's artistic interest in human anatomy began in 2009 with her series 'The Anatomy Is Adorning Itself'. She has used organic materials, such as blood, in many works, and her most recent, Blood Crystals, is an alienating perspective on the components of our 'Self'; they combine the beautiful and uncanny, by giving agency to particles of the body, and bring them in direct relation with glass, plants and fabrics. The artist's philosophical research allows her to spin a network between the objects of the exhibition, combining non-/human agents, giving space for the Unknown, to make us question our definition of Self in an anthropocentric world.