Barbora Dayef

Barbora Dayef (*1991) studied sculpture in the studio of Dominik Lang at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague (UMPRUM). In her work, she continuously tries to update the medium of sculpture, which has lost some of its original functions, meanings, universality, and comprehensibility in recent decades.She does this by creating parallels with ancient sculpture, which serves as an archetypal partner with whom she engages in an explosive dialogue. Dayef sees sculpture as a living and independent organism that she wants to understand, take care of, teach, and show how to live in today's world. For these purposes, she primarily uses clay, which she combines with industrially produced materials. She also connects the medium of sculpture with performance, which plays an important role in her work. The performative approach, combined with the immobility and permanence that are typical of sculpture, represents the starting point for Dayef's development of possibilities by which sculpture could evolve in the contemporary world of the 21st century.

The project deals with notions of sculpture in relation to artistic performance. It focuses on the so-called "third space" – a conceptual space of dialogue. The central question is under what circumstances a sculpture can catalyze a social interaction. The artistic research draws from the principles of dialogical acting (a method of experiencing public solitude by conducting a dialogue with oneself, used in theatre and psychotherapy). One of the objectives is using the method to comment on the current changeover of culture contents to online space, including frustrations by the lack of social interactions in real space.