Michaela Casková | Kreenholm garden

// BIO

Michaela is a visual artist, art educator, nomadic gardener and forager who keeps an eye on atmospheric events. Motivated by processes of connecting, sharing, doing, being and learning together she keeps moving between different collaborative and interdisciplinary projects. As a active member of Mustarinda association she works on projects intertwining art, research and ecological and cultural diversity. 

Michaela received masters in Fine Arts (2012) and Masters in Art education (2014). Ever since she has been working as community weaver and mediator between art, science and its various audiences. Most of her wanderings, foraging and gatherings are connected to Mustarinda house surrounded by old-growth forest, by the sea in her studio in Helsinki or by the hills of her homeland in Czechia.

//ARTIST STATEMENT

Wandering around with baskets full of nettles, bark, stones, clay. Walking in company, with scissors, plastic bags full of rotten mushrooms and then freezing, boiling, drying, dyeing, separating, observing, learning, forgetting, getting excited and disappointed.

During the residency and workshops the artists Michaela Casková will let the participants to take her out for a walk around Narva.
While walking we will forage for a material that will in experimental garden laboratory turn into inks and dyes. 
We will together create, share, taste and experience the colour code of Narva weather

//EXPERIENCE AT NART

During my 2 weeks residency in Kreenholm Garden I lead couple of workshops. We went out for a walk, foraged for plants and turned them into inks and solar-dyes. 

I would like to share something with you, dear reader. It is an extract of how whole my summer looked like and also example of how juicy and colourful my two weeks at NART were. 

It is recipe for solar dyeing technique we did during those two workshops with locals:

• Fill the bottom of jar with a layer of desired plants and flowers, place (natural) yarn on top of them and add another layer of plants.
  
• Fill jar with water to very top so all the plants and yarn are under water.
  
• Place jar on sunny and warm spot on window , shake it time to time and wait at least one month before you take already coloured yarn out of jar. 

//new ideas and impressions

I have been past years working a lot with foraging, making pigments and experimenting with all kinds of materials. And also working with wool and dyeing fabrics with herbs I find on my walks. Although I am aware that one of the materials I work with is textile, I never though about my work in context of textile art, craft, applied arts, or textile industry. All the stories and new contexts for my work suddenly came to me and I felt mesmerised for quite a while. I could not stop asking and reading the stories of Narva as a town of textile. Since then, maybe because it came to me and I did not chase it, I see some understories getting more subtly weaved through my thinking and works. I really feel pickled by Narva and let’s see what happens in a while.

//most memorable moment or memory in Narva

Oh, so many! Mostly long walks and talks with Liina who was guiding me through abandoned Kreenholm textile factory. All the wild plants taking over empty places. Joesuu see shore with never-ending horizon. All the scales and contrasts of Narva. Also, I got lost in here, and I never do.

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