Textiles can also be perceived as a living thread that connects art and life.
Prof. Miroslav Brooš (b. 1952) works at the Academy of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts in Banská Bystrica, at the Department of Sculpture and Spatial Creation. At the 7th edition of Textile Art of Today, he presents his installation Gift of Earth… XV (from the cycle Carrying the Earth), for which the international jury awarded him the Excellent Award for its aesthetically appealing and artistically inventive execution.
Your installation captured the attention not only of the jury but also of the broader audience, provoking with its multilayered meanings. To what extent does it reflect the central theme of the triennial — “Art that Connects”?
I perceive art as a unique relationship of interaction between a human being and the world. It offers us an opportunity for active coexistence. In art, I seek and find specific relationships, interactivity, participation, and relational aesthetics in its various forms. I see the value of art in relationships — in the way values are sometimes transferred from life into art and from art back into life. It is a transformation of values. I strive for my artistic approaches and creative outputs to activate their surroundings, so it can be said that the triennial’s theme Art that Connects is actually part of my long-term program.
Do you often work in long-term cycles?
Yes, I create in open, interrelated, and continuously evolving cycles. It is a process where something naturally arises, follows on from something else, and complements it — but also changes, transforms, and acquires new contexts and meanings. A good example is precisely the long-term cycle Carrying the Earth, which I began in 1987 in the Slovak Paradise.
How did these “Carrying” projects continue?
As personal, collective, and public events, often based on the participation of both professionally and non-professionally oriented individuals and institutions. Earth was joined with earth in a new environment, and through this connection, new contextual meanings emerged. Over time, I enriched the process of carrying the earth with the process of giving, through which the entire project acquired new socio-cultural contexts. The installation I am presenting at the 7th Triennial belongs to the cycle Giving… Earth.
So the fabric receives the earth and then carries it to other places?
Samples of donated earth are carried in white cloth. It is a textile wrapping that, during the process of carrying and artistic handling, absorbs the properties, texture, color, scent, and other specific qualities of the earth. In the final textile objects, memories, messages, attitudes, and insights — both personal and artistic — are “woven in.”
The installation consists of 121 empty textile objects that encode the processes of giving at various locations around the world. These objects contain 121 samples of soil from Banská Bystrica, where I live, together with soil samples from the surroundings of the castle in Hlohovec.
Your project will continue, as after Hlohovec the triennial will be reinstalled in Danubiana in Čunovo near Bratislava. What will happen to it by the Danube?
At Danubiana, I will complete the process of giving the earth. The 121 earth objects will be moved into the gallery’s exterior. Inside the gallery, memory traces will remain — empty textile objects that appear “contentless” at first sight. Outside, a new installation made of the gifted earth objects will emerge.
This opens for the viewer a possibility of mental participation in reconstructing and reconnecting these installations. The earth is thus given back to nature.
Since the process of assimilation of the earth will take longer than the triennial itself, visitors will have the opportunity to participate in the long-term reconstruction processes linked to the stories of people and the earth in the installation Giving… Earth XV.
Through such an authorial interpretation, the message of the work becomes clear. But to what extent can a viewer understand all these contexts and meanings without this explanation?
Earth merges with earth elsewhere, and what remains important is the memory trace of those who participated in the process — just as in the memory of the fabric in which the earth was wrapped. The meaning of the project lies in people’s participation in the creation of the work, in the processes of carrying, giving, and installing. Alongside reflections on the earth of a specific place and on Earth as a cultural phenomenon, the project also invites reflections on values in art — on who, what, and how value is created.
You have exhibited at the Textile Triennial several times — how do you perceive it, and what captured your attention at the 7th edition?
I was impressed by the very fact that the triennial took place. The theme itself is inspiring, as it allows for an individual perception of the meaning of the fiber and for the presentation of specific creative approaches. Textile Art of Today has already earned its place in the world of fiber art, and it is not easy — given today’s conditions and the competition of global events — to continually reaffirm it. The participation of many significant figures in the 7th edition proves that the organizers succeeded.
Conceptually, I was intrigued by the connection between the presentations of Beáta Gerbócová’s and Božena Augustínová’s works, which created a natural continuity between their exhibitions. I would welcome the reintroduction of a section for student works from art universities into the event’s structure.
Ľudovít Petránsky
