The new exhibition Biopersistence at the UM Gallery explores the boundaries of life and death, pausing on the desire for immortality and finality. Through the works of Czech and international artists, it reflects on the need to (re)live under the conditions of constant pressure to optimise the body and mind. 

The curators Agáta Hošnová and Karolína Voleská reflect in their project on the current disappearance of finitude from the consciousness of society and the efforts to control it. It is not only about the development of medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, which is reflected in the shift of the average age and quality of life, but above all about the trends moving society and its values. Death is coming to be seen as a technical problem rather than as part of life and an inevitable fate. This opens up new ethical dilemmas. The exhibition Biopersistence reveals how ideas about the body, consciousness and finitude are changing as life becomes an investment project, deepening questions about who has a right to it.

"Through this exhibition project we have sought to sensitively grasp and reflect on the fact that finitude is one of the few concepts across all living organisms. The aim of Biopersistence, however, was not to shock with a sensitive topic, but to look at the broad ways in which death is reflected in contemporary visual art. Thus, we worked with rather subtle hints that we can associate with death - medical aesthetics, alternative spirituality, natural cycles or the visuality of memorial plaques," comment the exhibition's curators Agáta Hošnová and Karolína Voleská, graduates of Theory and History of Modern and Contemporary Art at UMPRUM.

These ideas materialize in the works of the seven selected artists. Although each expresses herself through a different medium or focuses on different issues, their works together make a complex statement. A sculpture by Maria Holá, a graduate of the Studio of Free Art IV at UMPRUM, draws attention to a body dependent on tireless productivity and controlled by an oversized instrument of bio-power. A series of works by AVU graduate Kristina Láníková highlight the availability of care determined by social and economic conditions. An object by Natália Sýkorová, a graduate of the Studio of Free Art III, also responds to healing, combining technician sterility with healing and spirituality. Large-scale paintings by the Hungarian-German artist living in Leipzig Galamb Thorday open up a polemic over the tendency to appropriate traditional knowledge and spiritual experience by the commercial market. A grouping of metallic carnivorous plants by the Athens-based Romanian artist Nona Inescu draws attention to the illusion that we are in control of biological processes. Bianka Barniakova, a student at the Studio of Free Art I, deals with mourning and memories through marble objects resembling tombstones. Memento mori and the aesthetics of times long gone permeate the black and white analogue photographs of Tereza Zelenkova, who studied and lives in London.

The exhibition's mission and the works themselves are underscored by an installation by Adam Rýznar and Sofia Gjuričová, students of the Architecture Studio II at UMPRUM. The exposition is bordered by a semi-sheer and translucent wall of old pink tulle fabric, evoking a sense of illusory security.

The exhibition Biopersistence offers a space for reflection on a future where to survive means to redefine what it means to be alive.

Artists: Bianka Barniakova, Nona Inescu, Marie Holá, Kristina Láníková, Natália Sýkorová, Galamb Thorday, Tereza Zelenkova
Curators: Agáta Hošnová, Karolína Voleská
Architecture: Sofie Gjuričová, Adam Rýznar (Pipe Dream)
Graphic design: tar.into