MICHAELA NAGYIDAIOVÁ – TRANSIENT TIES
Opening: Thursday 25 July at 7 pm
Exhibition: 26. 7. – 7. 9. 2024
In her visually captivating photographic projects, Slovak photographer Michaela Nagyidaiová explores themes of family ties, migration, and roots. She draws inspiration from unresolved events of the past as well as contemporary geopolitical issues.
The Transient Ties project narrates the story of the forced migration of the artist’s grandmother, Lena (Slovak and Macedonian) or Eleni (Greek), who fled Greece as a child and made a new life in the former communist Czechoslovakia. The project consists of photographs and a short colour film (8 minutes 44 seconds, 2023) and is set between Greece and Slovakia. It visualizes the fragility and impermanence of one’s connection to their homeland after being forced to escape. The project examines the process of severing ties with one’s birthplace while attempting to integrate into a new environment.
Lena/Eleni’s uprootedness was a consequence of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949), fought between monarchists and communists. The Transient Ties thus simultaneously explores her identity as a former political refugee and the bonds between displacement and cultural heritage, questioning how ideology and politics affect personal aspects of everyday life.
Michaela Nagyidaiová (*1996, Bratislava) graduated with an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication in 2019. She has been a member of the Women Photograph initiative since 2021 and a part of the Futures platform since 2023. Her work has been published in Camera Austria, Fotograf magazine, ETC magazine, Calvert Journal, and Urbanautica. Her projects have been exhibited at various venues including the PH-Museum Lab in Bologna (IT), the Portraits Hellerau Award in Dresden (DE), the Photon Gallery in Ljubljana (SI), the Austrian Cultural Forum in London (UK), and Galerie Huit in Arles (FR). She currently lives and works between Bratislava and Vienna. www.michaelanagyidaiova.com
Michaela Nagyidaiová’s exhibition was supported by the Slovak Institute in Prague. Our exhibition programme is supported by grants from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the State Fund for Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Prague and the Prague 1 Municipal District. Thank you!