On December 18 at 7:00 PM, we invite you to the opening of the exhibition The Hardest Thing Is to Predict the Past / Jana Gobiková
Where? Nová Vlna Gallery
When? December 18 at 7:00 PM
Curator: Piotr Gąska
Guided tour: January 9 at 5:00 PM
Admission free.
Jana Gombiková was born in Trenčín. She is a graduate of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava. In her artistic work, she explores themes of individual and collective memory, identity, and subjective experience, often working with a combination of text and image.
According to the latest scientific studies, when recalling memories we do not reproduce what was stored — we reconstruct it. Every time we remember an event, we try to fill in the gaps, reinterpret details, or add new information based on our current knowledge, emotions, impulses, or the present shape of our personal narrative. Each return to a memory creates a new version of the story, making it almost impossible to truly “predict” the past — or even fully understand it.
In my series The Hardest Thing Is to Predict the Past, I examine the mechanisms of memory and the possibility of constructing alternative versions of one’s own story through the medium of photography. By rescanning and intervening in my own negatives, I create new interpretations of what was once recorded — just as happens in the process of remembering. Unlike digital photography, analogue material is a physical proof of the existence of a given moment. Yet, like memory, a photograph is not a record of reality, but rather a fragment or an interpretation. But is the person looking at the photographs today the same person who created them?
Our memories shape us just as much as we shape them.
Photo and video documentation will be taken at the event and may be published later.
