Jizerské totems - Radka Anna Chocholoušová

Between ornament and memory of the landscape

In the past, Jablonec beads travelled across oceans, and they continue to do so today, serving as magical artefacts, social glue and symbolic capital in the hands of indigenous tribes, often more valuable than economic wealth itself. Ornaments have always confirmed a person's position in a group and have become part of a ritualised exchange of gifts. With this exhibition, I would like to point out the acupuncture point of this phenomenon of symbolic capital, which is Jablonec costume jewellery. Here, on the southern slopes of the Jizera Mountains, this material has also become a visible cultural expression of the local community for local glassmakers, smiths, factors, merchants, pressers and stringers, the sap concentrating the essence of the whole society. The exhibition *Jizerské totemy* (Jizera Totems) engages with costume jewellery in its transcendent symbolism – it is not just a decoration, but a fetish, a sign that defines us and at the same time communicates with us non-verbally, just like the surrounding nature from which this material was born.

In today's world, we often perceive the Earth only as a source of raw materials, not as the source of all life. This technocratic approach distances us from perceiving the landscape as a living organism. This exhibition project therefore uses the ancient method of geomancy – not in the sense of simple divination, but as an attempt to rediscover the energy lines between people, production and place. We must begin to ask ourselves what role technology and industry have played in shaping this region. If we perceive technology as a by-product of our culture, we will understand that just as the automobile unintentionally created the modern city and its problems, the glassmaking tradition has shaped the soul and face of the Jablonec region in ways that we are only now discovering.

As a generation and as a civilisation, we therefore ask ourselves a key self-reflective question: Given our relationship to technology and the landscape, what kind of ancestors are we becoming today? Are we just consumers, or can we create a sustainable network of life? The photographs and objects in this installation are not just aesthetics, they are an attempt to return to the ability to enter the present through observation. Through photography, I seek a way out of modern culture, which measures success only by growth, and return to the grounding and indigenous wisdom that lies hidden deep beneath the layers of this region's industrial history.

The opening will also feature the launch of a pop-up book published as an accompanying publication to this exhibition.

R. A. Chocholoušová (*1979) is an artist from Jablonec who focuses on photography, video art, painting, objects and their mutual overlaps. Radka is currently completing her doctoral studies at the Faculty of Art and Architecture at TUL in Liberec. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno in the Environment studio (Doc. ak. mal. Vladimír Merta), and she completed her bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Applied Arts and Design in Ústí n. L. in the Natural Materials studio (Prof. ak. mal. Jaroslav Prášil). She works as a glass and goldsmith technologist and drawing teacher at the Secondary School of Crafts and Services in Jablonec nad Nisou and has long been involved in transitional rituals associated with non-invasive tattooing – ritual body decoration.



www.chocholousova.com

Accompanying publication – pop-up book available at: www.divutvor.cz