The exhibition project entitled Factory of Arcadian Identity represents the first collaboration between Iva Davidová and Eva Maceková. In their work, both artists deal with fictional worlds (seemingly) untouched by humans, which serve as romanticized escapes from the chaotic reality of the present.
The idea of an illusory paradise offering spiritual purification through a return to nature is undermined by the phenomena of catfishing and cottagecore. Sannazar's mythical Arcadia, an allegorical land of ideal pastoral bliss untouched by civilization, is transformed here into a mere arid simulation. Instead of the desired contemplation, the scenes of an untouched natural world in Maceková's paintings and Davidová's drawings and reliefs evoke an almost disturbing feeling of permanence and death.
Nature does not come alive in the presence of humans; on the contrary, it sinks deeper into the abyss of stagnation and suffering. Hope can thus come from unspecified creatures with non-human elements, abstract bodies representing Nature, which appear non-invasively in the depicted scenes. Their presence liberates the natural world from its melancholic state of extinction and transience and, like modern forests, contributes to change and healing in the landscape.
