Holo-

 Holo- is a duo consisting of designer Kamila Valešová (1995) and transdisciplinary artist Michaela Cagáňová (1999), who works with glass. A duet of millennials from Generation Z.

Holo-* is a duo consisting of designer Kamila Valešová (1995) and transdisciplinary glass artist Michaela Cagáňová (1999). A millennial and Gen Z duet. Holo- arose from a long-lasting friendship and the rejection of the myth of the genius individual artist. Rather, holo- explicitly admits the inherent need for mutual dialogue and codependency. The driving force behind their practice is a curiosity about how non-human life operates, explored through field research and collaboration with experts across various scientific fields. The core of their practice is fabricating hypothetical, fictional landscapes and narratives in which they apply post-anthropocentric values. Taking a fragment from their environment and building a new narrative around it (a para-fiction). The outcomes of long-term research projects take different formats, such as publications, workshops, installations or performative glass objects. At the moment, holo- is based in Slovakia, between Banská Štiavnica and Bratislava. Their practice and shows, however, extend to other cities such as The Hague, Istanbul, Prague, Athens, Porto and elsewhere. One of the driving forces behind our work is the effort to broaden our human-oriented perspective and encourage a more fluid and inclusive understanding of relationships – in the natural world and beyond it. The way we execute our projects is usually via long-term (field) research and dialogue with professionals from various scientific fields. In our projects, we have worked with a chemist synthesising scent molecules, a specialist in biomining, a pioneer in bioremediation, an urban botanist and a scent designer. We find the intersection of art and science mutually nurturing.

One of the enduring questions we explore this last year is whether scent and smells can be used as a tools for storytelling. The sociology and politics of scent remain largely unexplored, yet we all recognise that scents are often subject to rigid labels and gender stereotypes. Primarily however, scents represent interspecies narratives, as animals and plants primarily communicate through scent, without the need for language. Scent enters our body and affects us physically. It requires physical presence as it cannot be digitised. We are slowly building our olfactory archive by collecting and extracting unconventional scents from our surroundings. What stories could be told if, instead of looking, hearing, or reading, we smelled our subject?

In terms of material, glass often plays an essential role in the installations and objects of holo-. It works as the carrier for our custom scents. However, we are also interested in the organic shapes of glass that emerge from the dialogue with the material. Rather than striving for perfect geometrical shapes, we try to benefit from the unpredictable way the material takes form as it surrenders to gravity. When working with glass in our installations, we need to be hyper-aware of every movement and of the environment.

This sharpens our sensitivity to the space, the object and ourselves.

You can learn more about Holo- on the Secondary Archive website here.

Publication: 8.12.2025