1. 2. – 3. 2. a 9.2. – 10. 2. 2026
rosa, Heidelberger Str. 28, 12059 Berlin, Germany
As part of the Vorspiel festival in Berlin, Mikuláš Mahr, a student of the Photography II Studio at UMPRUM, will present his work alongside renowned digital artist Chiara Passa in their joint exhibition stillllllife. In their projects, both artists return to the overlooked genre of still life, which has evolved and transformed throughout history.
Mukuláš Mahr thematizes the still life as a genre that undergoes a significant reinterpretation in the digital environment. The computer desktop plays a crucial role as a new field of image construction, where composition takes place exclusively through digital files. "I understand the creation of still lifes as a playful process that makes use of the possibilities inherent in working with files—layering, copying, duplicating, and uninhibited manipulation. Here, the form of the still life is democratized, stripped of corporeality, and anchored in the flat space of a software interface, referencing the paintings of Flemish and Dutch masters" says the young photographer.
While in Baroque, objects depicted in still lifes are understood as inanimate and motionless, in her AR/VR installations, Passa sets them in motion. She starts from an object-oriented-ontology and programming, and penetrates deeper into her VR objects. Here, materialities come to life. Where Mahr’s work deliberately isolates objects as image-files, Passa’s practice does the opposite: She morphs photogrammetry and 3D scans into a continuous, dynamic environment of, with and around the object.
Both works reflect on objects less as static, defined entities, but as open, manipulatable configurations demanding to be experienced and interacted with, implying that the only contemporary possibility of still life is movement.
