(Image by Tasha Goss, 2019)michaela davidova
michaela.davidova[at]hotmail.cz
+31630540204
@michaeladavidova_
KVK number 87207486
Education
Sep 2020 - Jun 2022
MA Ecology Futures, AKV/St-Joost, Master Institute of Visual Cultures, Den Bosch, the Netherlands
Sep 2016 – Jun 2019
BA (Hons) Artist Designer: Maker, School of Art and Design, Cardiff, the United Kingdom
study exchange at WDKA Rotterdam (Jan 2018 - Jun 2018)
Exhibitions
27 - 30/03 2025
Beyond visual: aperture as earth, with Keilecontemporary during Rotterdam Art Week, Netherlands
10/12 2024 - 16/02 2025
The Metabolising Analogue, solo exhibition, Vašulka Kitchen Brno, House of the Arts Brno, Czech Republic
08 - 15/09 2024
Oozing, Spilling, Leaking: uncovering bodily fluids in artistic practice; a group exhibition with Hedwich Rooks and Genietta Varsi, curated by Julia Fidder; Bioart Society, SOLU Helsinki, Finland
10/11 2023
Kunstpack Stad van Makers, commission, Nachtzuster, Tilburg
10 - 12/11 2023
NS16 Riso prints, group exhibition, NS16 studios, Tilburg
29/09 - 02/10
Back to the Future, program Becoming Alive, analogue film festival, WORM, Rotterdam
31/03 - 20/05 2023
De/composition, group exhibition, Woodend gallery, Scarborough
22/10 - 30/10 2022
Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven
30/06 - 03/07 2022
Find us in the in-between, graduation show MA Ecology Futures, 's-Hertogenbosch
08/04 - 15/05 2022
Constructed wetlands & Deconstructed borders, solo exhibition, Hot compost gallery, Leeds
22 - 23/10 2021
OFFO, International Pinhole Photography Festival, group exhibition, Jastrzębie-Zdrój and Olza
08 - 20/10 2021
Re-nature, group exhibition, 's-Hertogenbosch
12/06 2021
EYE Film Museum Amsterdam, short film screening, Film Research Lab, Amsterdam
08/08 - 30/08 2020
Benefit for Brabant, group exhibition, PARK, Tilburg
16/01 – 25/01 2020
exTra #1, group exhibition, Kunstpodium T, Tilburg
25/07 – 04/08 2019
Object-ivity, experimental photography and sculpture, group exhibition, Offshoot Gallery, London
12/06 – 16/06 2019
Going in Circles, photography and installation, solo exhibition, Hoxton 253 art project space, London
23/03 – 21/04 2019
Makers 2019, crafts, group exhibition, Craft in the Bay, Cardiff
12 – 18/11 2018
The Bowl, crafts, group exhibition, Cardiff School of Art and Design, Cardiff
31/05 2018
It might not be there, public art installation, group exhibition, Rotterdam
23/03 – 22/04 2018
Makers 2018, submission for the British Art Medal Society, group exhibition, Craft in the Bay, Cardiff
13/01 2018
Pinhole Camera Display, group showcase of pinhole cameras, Whitechapel Gallery, London
27/10 – 28/11 2017
OFFO 2017, Festival of Pinhole Photography, group exhibition, Jastrzebie-Zdroj
07/05 – 07/06 2017
The Journey, pinhole photography, solo exhibition, Arthouse Gallery – Ty Celf Oriel, Aberystwyth
26 – 30/04 2017
London Pinhole Festival, pinhole photography, group exhibition, Four Corners Gallery, London
Relevant working experience
2024
Photography Otherwise: a cookbook of photographic ecological processes, OffCourse teacher with Risk Hazekamp, Minerva Art Academy
2021 - 2023
Project coordinator and co-curator of the regional WARP exhibition series, reading cirles, writer of studio encounters and
a team member, SEA Foundation, Tilburg
Talks/Workshops
31/10 2023
Recipes and Notes: The Photographic Darkroom as an Organism, reading and artist talk
Vašulka Kitchen Brno
29 - 30/07 2023
Substance breakdown & transformation, workshop in alternative developers and photosensitive materials
Contemporary Arts Centre PLATO, Ostrava
05/01 2023
Artist talk for students of Stage design course
Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, Dresden
23/11 2022
ELIA Conference - No Stone Unturned
Uniarts, Helsinki
05/11 2022
Hybrid chemigram workshop
Zine Camp, Rotterdam
24/09 2022
Photographic Garden Symposium
Leeds Arts University
22/09 2022
Hybrid chemigram workshop
Take it Easy Film lab, Leeds
18/05 2022
Graduation Hub
V2 Lab for unstable media, Rotterdam
23/07 2020
Artist talk on sustainable darkroom - recycling in art practice
London Alternative Photography Collective, online
25/01 2020
#pinholecameranotabomb and Caffenol-C developing
Kunstpodium T, Tilburg
15/06 2019
#pinholecameranotabomb and Caffenol-C developing
Hoxton 253 art project space, London
06/04 2019
Artist talk and workshop #pinholecameranotabomb
Being Media, The Beinghuman, Frome
22/09 2018
Caffenol-C developing film in a coffee
Barista Cup Ostrava 2018, Ostrava
29/04 2018
#pinholecameranotabomb
Pinhole Photography Day, Poortgebouw, Rotterdam
22/10 2017
#pinholecameranotabomb
Made in Roath festival, Cardiff, the United Kingdom
Residency/Internships/Awards
Sep - Nov 2023
Artist in Residence - Vašulka Kitchen Brno
Brno, the Czech Republic
Aug 2022
Artist in Residence - Dalby Forest
Yorkshire Moors, the United Kingdom
June 2022
EKP excellence in research award
St. Joost Art Academy, the Netherlands
Sep 2021 - Sep 2022
Artist in Residence - Photographic Garden
The Sustainable Darkroom Collective, Leeds, the United Kingdom
Sep 2019 – Jan 2020
Intern
SEA Foundation, Tilburg, the Netherlands
Aug 2019
Artist in Residence - DUPLO – Linea de Costa
Cadiz, Spain
Aug 2019
Go Global Bursary
the United Kingdom
2012
The project ''Silicon Heaven of Ostrava city'' won the title of the best project within the category ''For the joy'' announced by OKD
Ostrava, the Czech Republic
Published Write-ups
2022
Constructed wetlands & Deconstructed borders in re:source publication
The Sustainable Darkroom
2021
Kombucha printing in an online blog
Alternative Processes
2020
SEA Perspectives on Art and Sustainability
Texturmag
Press
2022
Metropolis M Eindexamen
2017
Together & Sunspell
References available on request
Michaela Davidova (1988, she/her) is a Czech artist and researcher based in Tilburg, the Netherlands. She holds a BA(Hons) Artist, Designer: Maker degree from the Cardiff School of Art and Design, Wales; and an MA in Ecology Futures from the Master Institute of Visual Cultures, Noord Brabant.
In her art practice, Davidova works with experimental photographic processes which follow the agency and curiosity of the matter. Body waste, urine-based and DIY photographic developers, belly sounds, alchemy of the ingredients, digestion by plants and fungi, and morphing growing cultures are all part of her practice. Although her artistic research revolves around analogue photography, it is not limited to images. Instead, she aims to bring audiences closer to the ecological making and thinking which she explains as ‘getting out of the frame and enlarging the role of the photography practitioner into an alchemist and a carer’.
As an artist and a self-taught photographer, she is interested in those aspects of her practice which enact from wasted, consumed, and digested matter, as photographic practice is seen as multi-layered and intra-active. This does not always mean creating without toxicity or cross-contamination but following the situations in which the material process deconstructs the possibilities for different ways of relating, and seeing outside the human-centred gaze. Her research methods are often lead by materials, organisms or processes allowing them to develop into a broader mesh of entangled ecosystem where one element feeds another.
Michaela Davidova is an active workshop teacher in alternative photographic processes (2024 - Minerva Art Academy in Groningen; and 2025 - St. Joost Academy in Den Bosch and Breda, together with Dutch artist and researcher Risk Hazekamp). Besides that, she is a coordinator of a bio art [MI] Lab at CARADT (Center of Applied Research for Art, Design & Technology); she is a chair of artist-led foundation Text my Sister (following her experience as co-curator at artist-led organisation SEA Foundation). She collaborates with and supports the community Sustainable Darkroom collective (UK) and is a member of a film lab Filmwerkplaats, Rotterdam (NL).
Her graduation research named Constructed Wetlands & Deconstructed Borders was awarded EKP Excellence in Research Award 2022; the initial advice was given by doc. Ing. Michal Krišky Dunajský, Ph.D. from VUT, Brno. It focuses on the ecological impact of photographic materials and darkroom waters, their remediation and digestion by living organisms and the thin borders which exist between the humanature.
In her art practice, Davidova works with experimental photographic processes which follow the agency and curiosity of the matter. Body waste, urine-based and DIY photographic developers, belly sounds, alchemy of the ingredients, digestion by plants and fungi, and morphing growing cultures are all part of her practice. Although her artistic research revolves around analogue photography, it is not limited to images. Instead, she aims to bring audiences closer to the ecological making and thinking which she explains as ‘getting out of the frame and enlarging the role of the photography practitioner into an alchemist and a carer’.
As an artist and a self-taught photographer, she is interested in those aspects of her practice which enact from wasted, consumed, and digested matter, as photographic practice is seen as multi-layered and intra-active. This does not always mean creating without toxicity or cross-contamination but following the situations in which the material process deconstructs the possibilities for different ways of relating, and seeing outside the human-centred gaze. Her research methods are often lead by materials, organisms or processes allowing them to develop into a broader mesh of entangled ecosystem where one element feeds another.
Michaela Davidova is an active workshop teacher in alternative photographic processes (2024 - Minerva Art Academy in Groningen; and 2025 - St. Joost Academy in Den Bosch and Breda, together with Dutch artist and researcher Risk Hazekamp). Besides that, she is a coordinator of a bio art [MI] Lab at CARADT (Center of Applied Research for Art, Design & Technology); she is a chair of artist-led foundation Text my Sister (following her experience as co-curator at artist-led organisation SEA Foundation). She collaborates with and supports the community Sustainable Darkroom collective (UK) and is a member of a film lab Filmwerkplaats, Rotterdam (NL).
Her graduation research named Constructed Wetlands & Deconstructed Borders was awarded EKP Excellence in Research Award 2022; the initial advice was given by doc. Ing. Michal Krišky Dunajský, Ph.D. from VUT, Brno. It focuses on the ecological impact of photographic materials and darkroom waters, their remediation and digestion by living organisms and the thin borders which exist between the humanature.