Simcik, Jakub
KITCHEN OF HAPPINESS / 2012 – 2013
video, 6:32 min, 6:9
What relationship do house wives have to their kitchens? In „Kitchen of Happiness“ a melancholic narrator describes kitchen utensils that had to be left behind during an emigration. A lost homeland is being summoned.
BLACKOUT / 2011 – 2012
Photographs mounted on aluminium plates, 120 x 90 cm
In 2011 I travelled to Rome in order to photograph the tourists. I photographed travellers taking pictures, eating, posing. They all seemed to be holding on to an idealised Italy that has never existed. I photographed, unknowing, that my camera wasn´t lighproof. Every shot I took was exposed for a lot longer than intended. As I returned I was given an unwelcome surprise: all my images had been burnt black. It was as if the images hadn´t been burnt by the sun, but by the light of forgetfullness.
ON THE ROAD TO COPENHAGEN / 2009 – 2010
video, 23 min
The essay film „On the road to Copenhagen“ centers around a bicycle trip from Berlin to the UN climate confrerence COP 15 in Copenhagen. The focus of the film is the fusion of the private and the political but also on the exile of the political from institutional politics. The format of the film is experimental and centers around the creation of a spectacle out of political themes.
Supermarket Garden
For several months I collected seeds from apples bought in the supermarket. Later on I planted them into pots and started cultivating them. The goal is to create a garden out of these supermarket apples on a site that reflects my questions around nature and its cultivation.
As a human race we have now reached a stage where the old borders between nature and culture have dissolved. The apple as such is a perfect symbol for this: it is one of man´s earliest cultivated plants but is nowadays being used as a commodity. It is deeply rooted in the myths and symbols of Western culture, and has an archetypical quality, connected to the image of the Edenic garden.
The work consists of documentation of the growth of 20 apple trees, that will one day become a paradisic Supermarket Garden.
Battle of the Spectacle
„Battle of the Spectacle“ is an art project operating at the crossroads of art and environmental activism. In a time when all political events are staged events, the demands of repressed minorities will only be heard if they are presented as spectacle. El Martillo was born in order to visualise the struggle for climate justice into one iconic image: a twelve meter tall inflatable sculpture completely in silver.
About twenty diverse people from all over the world worked on the realisation of the sculpture. It was sewn together out of reflective insulation foil during a two week long workshop. It has since been sent to Mexico in order to partake in the protests around the COP 16 climate conference in Cancún. The project was initiated by the artist duo Jakub Simcik and Artúr van Balen.
Photo montage
Radical Faeries / 2009
The radical faeries were founded in 1979 in the United States in order to create a network of extended families for homosexuals. I went to the Folleterre Faerie Sanctuary in the spring of 2009 in order to document them during their celebration of Belthane, a celtic pagan rite.
Vita
*1984 in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia
Education
since 2009 Diploms, Fine Art Photograph & Media Art, Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, Germany
2008 – 2009 BA, 2nd Year of Fine Art Photography, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland
2003 – 2006 BA, Photojournalism at the Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden
Exhibitions
2013 “Viaggio in Italia / Italienische Reise,” ATELIERFRANKFURT, Frankfurt a.M.
2012 “Viaggio in Italia / Italienische Reise,” Halle 14, Spinnerei, Leipzig
2012 “Das Leben der Boheme,” Vorwerkstift, Hamburg
2012 “Land of Milk and Honey,” Kunstraum Liska, Leipzig
2011 „Cartes Postales D’Artistes“, Goethe-Institut Lyon
2010 Battle of the Spectacle, OKK/Raum 29, Berlin, Germany
2009 Circus of Desire, Pharmacy Galleries, Glasgow, Scotland
2008 Fuck for Forest and other Utopias, Hillhead Street Project Space, Glasgow, Scotland
2006 Who are you wearing?, Bildens Hus, Sundsvall, Sweden