Jana
Želibská, the important representative of the generation of action and
conceptual artists and alternative art scene in Slovakia, created a new multimedia installation for the
pavilion. It is dominated by a monumental projection of the sea, filmed in Venice.
An array of luminous swans rests on islets, representing the implacable human yearning for constancy in a world driven by unremitting change, bringing in its wake unavoidable losses as we traverse the breach between past and present. In the video-installation, with its contrasting luminous swans and gilt wooden object, the artist sardonically draws attention to the “omnipresent 'ready-made' objects that surround us and compose our increasingly artificial, one-off world of semblances”. For Jana Želibská, the swan is a messenger of change as a symbol of inner freedom, beauty, love, depth, purity, faithfulness and a symbiosis of antitheses. The piece's theme is the political and ecological cataclysm of the planet, yet according to the artist, “rather than being a commentary on an abject condition it challenges us to reflect and to hope.”