The Hunting Game (2023/2024)
The images of the main reference material from which I mainly created the collages, are from a vintage book from the 50's around hunting in the former Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia in the 50’s had over 100,000 organized hunters who hunted for love and as a sport. Mainly white men are depicted in the book, where‚ normal citizens’ are hunting different game as a way to ‚contribute to the wealth of the beautiful country. In hunting, we understand hunting to mean any activity by which the hunter takes possession of game.
This book symbolizes for me how the human relationship with animals/ nature and generally within society everything is centered around power. This drama of inequality and underlying power structures seems to be the central theme within the work, where I combined the main reference material with other vintage materials with images from non-western women and children.
The depicted women, children and animals that seem to be trapped inside the images, want to break free with a fierce spirit. Society is a raw and hard place, where survival of the fittest is still the underlying dogma. This still makes me angry. How can 'soft powers' strike back or resist and become ‚liberated’ from dominated powers? I would like to challenge dominant narratives, showcase resilience, and inspire viewers to rethink the values of empathy, cooperation, and inner strength in the context of survival and societal structures.
