(Image by Tasha Goss, 2019)

michaela davidova
michaela.davidova[at]hotmail.cz
+31630540204
@aytacrayta
KVK number 87207486



Qualification


Sep 2020 - June 2022
AKV/St-Joost, Master Institute of Visual Cultures
MA Ecology Futures

Sep 2016 – Jun 2019   
School of Art and Design, Cardiff, the UK
BA (Hons) Artist Designer: Maker

Jan 2018 – Jun 2019   
Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Exchange study Fine Art and Photography: Social Practices

Nov 2015   
The University of Edinburgh on Coursera.org
3 week course Photography: A Victorian Sensation, the UK


Exhibitions


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
Constructed wetlands & Deconstructed borders, 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
Whitechapel Gallery Family Day and 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


Project coordinator and co-curator


2021 - ongoing
WARP exhibition project co-curation and Art and Sustainability program co-curator, team member
SEA Foundation, Tilburg

2021, 2023
Inviting artists to reading circles
SEA Foundation, Tilburg

2020
#sea_youhere 2.0 on art and sustainability
SEA Foundation, Tilburg


Talks/Workshops


05/11 2022
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
Talks 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


AiR/Internships/Awards


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 


References available on request

I am a Czech artist based in Tilburg, the Netherlands. I hold a BA(Hons) Artist, Designer: Maker from Cardiff School of Art and Design (UK), and an MA Ecology Futures from the Master Institute of Visual Cultures, ’s-Hertogenbosch (NL).

In my art practice, I investigate the imprints in the environment manifested through the material witness and work on the cross-section of pseudoscience-art or do-it-yourself. Although my artistic research revolves around analogue photography, it is not limited to images. Instead, I aim to bring audiences closer to ecological thinking which I see as ‘getting out of the frame and enlarging the role of the photography practitioner into an alchemist and a carer’.

Often, I work with wasted/discarded/leftover matter which I reintroduce through the photographic process. Not necessarily with intention to reuse the material only, but to rethink the abject and its liminal tensions in which the humanature reality folds together. Within my practice, I wish for an approach that will make my darkroom work as an organism, and its users will become part of its metabolism, transforming in the complexity of relationships that humans and non-humans share, figuring out a way to work and live symbiotically.  

Lastly, I situate my work along the theory such as transcorporeality (Stacy Alaimo), hydrofeminism (Astrida Neimaniss), practice of attunement or mapping (Anna L. Tsing and Elaine Gan). I have the experience as a project coordinator and a co-curator, a workshop teacher, a writer, a long-distance cyclist, a boater, a waitress and cook, a gardener as well as a postwoman.