Harvest and Survive

z2o Sara Zanin is pleased to present Harvest and Survive, Anna Hulačová’s first solo show in Italy, curated by Denisa Václavová. In her work, the Czech sculptor and artist Anna Hulačová has long been concerned with the human condition and natural world, the relationship of man to landscape, universe and the past represented in folk and folkloric rituals. Her work creates a sense of urgency and can be seen as a kind of visual activism, with the themes of the inevitability of destruction, the gradual extinction of necessary organisms and the man's responsibility for human actions in the landscape. The objects, sculptures and paintings that emerge from under her hands are not of our world – weird insect-like creatures with human faces; astronauts in space suits searching for water and collecting pollen; human beings in whose heads and guts a whole new being is thriving. It is as if life itself was taking back what had been taken from it; as if it was the life's way of settling its score with us, albeit light-heartedly and with a sense of humour. Her faceless figures lose their place in the original world, and thus their identity. Nevertheless, they seem determined, and in spite of this they might find new and different worlds where to belong. No wonder their appearance reminds us of the look of medieval man, whose spiritual world of plants, mountains, forests and open skies has been replaced by sacral buildings as the starting points for understanding ourselves in the middle of the universe. The landscape was pushed to the side lines of activity, it is no longer part of us, it is an object of power. But it is in this world of Anna Hulačová that humans are reconnected with nature, with something original and forgotten – with the ritual of sowing, the ritual of harvesting, the regular circle of life and nature, the rhythm of a fixed order, the revived myths that need to be retold again and again. Through her objects, Anna Hulačová raises questions of balance and instability, detachment and closeness, community, and isolation. This revival of certain mythical figures hidden in a long-gone wilderness can be a story about beings who are perhaps waiting somewhere, hoping to save us. But the object of the conquest is not a world somewhere far away, it is the world of our lives, it is here and now, waiting to be freed and liberated. We thus try to conquer a world that once used to be ours, that once used to belong to us. Anna Hulačová (1985) studied at the Intermedia Studio of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Jiří Příhoda. Her work has been displayed at many prestigious institutions both home and abroad. Anna focuses on figurative sculpture inspired by mythology and Eastern cultures. In her work, she often refers to Czech folk culture. She lives in Klučov, a small village near Prague. Denisa Václavová (1973) is a curator and a founder of the international art festival 4+4 Days in Motion. The festival is unique in that it revives abandoned and unused buildings through art. She runs the Vzlet Gallery and the open-air Proluka Gallery in Prague. She teaches at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.