3. 3. 2022 – 15. 4. 2022

Zuzana Pustaiová (1990, Slovakia) is an internationally recognized photographer and an important representative of the younger generation of Slovak photographers, who recently completed her PhD in Art at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. In her work, she explores the themes of family, the intricacies of familial relationships, and the relationship to family history and origins. She is concerned with the conventions of the various roles within the family and in society. With wit, humour and irony, she thus exposes various cultural stereotypes related to gender, age, tradition and social inclusion.

After participating in several group exhibitions, she will now hold her first solo exhibition at Photon Gallery in Ljubljana. This will feature selected works from her recent projects Faces of Family, which won first prize at Photodays Rovinj in 2018, and her PhD project One Day Everyday, for which she also won the Grand Prix at the same festival in 2021.

One Day Every Day (2021)

The project One Day Every Day explores the influence of stereotypes, behavioural patterns and role-playing on our existence in today’s world. By applying the notion of functional fixation (the use of an object only in accordance with its intention) to human interactions and the notion of (societal) role-play, the artist reveals the boundaries where conventional use of routine becomes pathological. Visually and conceptually the series focuses on several distinct aspects of the topic at hand: wearing masks as an allegory of role-playing, performing various everyday activities and being caught in existential situations, belonging to a family or other larger social groups, and so on.

Faces of Family (2017)

In the second project, the artist explores the question: What is a family? First, she defines it as a small social group made up of individuals who belong to the same clan, but also as an environment to which we are most attached and which strongly influences us. It can encompass different structures, dynamics, feelings and moods. In examining her own family, a process that forms the basis of this project, she uncovered many layers that create an overall portrait of her close relatives. Each visual exploration showed her something new and prompted her to look into previously undiscovered areas within her own family dynamics.

Some of the photographs in the series thus show ordinary, everyday family life, but can also capture the distance that can develop within a family. Many, especially the individual portraits presented in sequences, reveal the relationship of the various family members to the artist herself. The series also explores how relationships, the structure of a family and shared memories change over the years. Some memories are just fragments of what remains, as references that illustrate relationships, others are glimpses or moments and still others could be presented as tableau. The series aims to show that the “faces of family” change depending on the point of view. However, the core of what a family represents to the artist remains the same throughout the series.

This exhibition is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council.

Video tour of the exhibition

Exhibition of Zuzana Pustaiová on RTV SLO (Slovene)