To what extent can we transmit exact visual information to those around us? Are we capable of truly deciphering the emotional charge important to the author of a visual work? The work of Eva Jiřička presented in the Black Box emerges from the attempt to deepen our visual imagination, understand how we share it, and how we transmit signs and symbols. The artist’s current work concerns itself, among other things, with uncovering the differences in the motifs internalized by this or that generation. In this way, it also indirectly illuminates the development of depictions in various epochs. It follows the collective mechanisms of reading paintings and the ability of individuals to reproduce and interpret symbols, be it captured by memory or transmitted through language.
Eva Jiřička has worked with seniors since 2009. Her work is interpreted in the context of participatory aspects of art. The artist’s interest in this demographic emerges, among other things, from an empathetic conviction about the importance of overcoming this demographic’s isolation. Her work, which focuses on remembering and sharing information, uncovers important factors of individual and collective memory. She uses games to release participants’ creative potential, incorporates them into creative processes, and takes them out of their everyday lives. From older interventions and small performative choreographies, her works arrive more and more often at well-developed group programs. Workshop performances share the process and dynamics of intergenerational exchanges. Her works prove that it is possible to overcome a prominent gap in communication, which divides various sections of society.
