Never Ground

The project is inspired by science fiction stories about the Earth’s subterranean world and latest scientific discoveries that connect speleological exploration with space research – for example, astronaut training includes a caving course during which participants experience situations similar to those in space: they need to stay constantly alert in an inhospitable alien environment, make critical decisions, and rely on each other. The artist is also fascinated by the vast rise in popularity of the flat Earth theory. Perceiving our planet from the perspective of its surface, we know little about the spaces beneath, the various cavities, the interconnections, and we are only indirectly able to surmise what they hide – the various organisms adapted to extreme conditions that inspire exploration of the possibilities of life on other celestial bodies. On the Moon, for example, scientists have identified "pits" that are likely to be "skylights" from lava tubes – geological entrances to underground tunnels that were once filled with lava. They may provide habitation for future lunar explorers. During the theoretical research that preceded creation of her work, the artist collaborated with researchers from various fields that included planetary geology, astrobiology, speleology, and microbiology of extreme environments.

The video is a probe into speculative futurological exploration. The author tests the limits of our perception and imagination at the intersection between real ecosystems and fiction. It alternates landscape scenery (a volcano on the island of Vulcano, the Parco geotermico delle Biancane in Tuscany, the Tavaran Grando cave in Veneto) with staged shots that lead through gaps in the exhibited objects and merge into a single path linked into a loop by a tunnel. The objects in the exhibition were created primarily to stage certain scenes in the video, such as the passage through a crystalline tunnel – a space-time cave. Trejbalová's inspiration for this form of filming came from early science fiction films made before the digital video era, including the films of Karel Zeman, that used analogue special effects and props.

The composition of this space-time trajectory is based on the structure of Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), in which the protagonists traverse the interior of the Earth, entering its bowels through a volcano on the Icelandic peninsula of Snæfellsnes and emerging through the Stromboli volcano in the Mediterranean Sea. The author builds on the novel by considering a passage through planet Earth to another cosmic body.

The video also encourages the metaphorical reflection that a journey beneath the surface into the interior (perhaps even one's own) can be an adventure and exploration that leads us to other unexpected worlds "beyond" Earth. The spiritual and physical experience is enhanced by vocal improvisation from the singer Adele Altro, with whom Natália Trejbalová previously collaborated on the video About Mirages and Stolen Stones.

Lýdia Pribišová

NATÁLIA TREJBALOVÁ (*1989, Košice) is a visual artist based in Milan, Italy, whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses film, sculpture, and drawing. Her moving image works are intricately linked to her sculptural art, which serves as a foundational medium for the construction of cinematic imagery. Drawing inspiration from contemporary scientific research as well as from speculative realms of science fiction, Trejbalová's work explores the political potential of world-building as a means of reshaping our understanding of the more-than-human ecosystem to which we belong. She has participated in various solo and group exhibitions, and her films have been screened in diverse institutions and spaces that include the Matadero, Palais de Tokyo, MUDAM Luxembourg, Power Station of Arts in Shanghai, OGR Torino, Fotomuseum Winterthur, La Quadriennale di Roma, Gossamer Fog, MAGA, L'Esprit Nouveau, Fondazione Pini, and Regional Art Gallery Liberec. Trejbalová was artist in residence at Schafhof – Europäisches Künstlerhaus Oberbayern, Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, AIR Futura Prague, and other institutions. Her recent solo exhibitions in Slovakia include A Few Thoughts on Floating Spores (2024) at Šopa Gallery in Košice and Isle of the Altered Sun (2021) at Promise of Kneropy in Bratislava.

LÝDIA PRIBIŠOVÁ has worked as an editor of the magazine Flash Art Czech & Slovak Edition since 2006, and since 2015 has been its editor-in-chief. Currently, she also serves as a curator at the Ján Koniarek Gallery in Trnava. In 2024, she curated the Slovak representation at the 60th Venice Biennale with the project Floating Arboretum (Oto Hudec and collective). From 2020 until 2024, she worked as a curator at Kunsthalle Bratislava, and during the same period served as President of the Slovak section of AICA. Since 2022, she has been part of the curatorial team of the international art fair The Others in Turin. From 2022 until 2024, she operated as an external lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. Between 2013 and 2015, she was a project coordinator at tranzit.sk, where she also conducted several curatorial projects. She founded the civic association PILOT in 2012, and in 2019 was one of the curators of Kaunas Biennale in Lithuania, collaborating with many foreign institutions including MAXXI Museum, MACRO Museum, MLAC Museo Laboratorio d'arte Contemporanea in Rome, Viafarini in Milan, Kunsthalle in Athens, Museum of Art in Cluj, Muse Festival in Gdansk, OI Futuro, Rio De Janeiro, Museum of Contemporary Art in Novi Sad and Rijeka, and National Gallery in Tirana. In 2013, she defended her Doctorate in History of Art at the University of La Sapienza in Rome. She is interested in the boundaries of art, participatory art practice, and ecological themes, and from 2022 until 2023 she curated the A Plant programme at Kunsthalle Bratislava, which included a programme in Bratislava's public space in response to the issue of green space within the city.