ARCHIVE OF FICTIONAL MEMORIES
The exhibition project Archive of Fictional Memories by Lucia Tallová, curated by Zuzana Pacáková, takes on the character of a complex artistic environment within the Stupava Synagogue. For the first time in her practice, the artist transforms a traditional exhibition space into an immersive environment—a layered, scenographically composed whole consisting of furniture, wooden constructions, and fragmentary architectural elements. Onto these objects and spatial modules, Tallová installs her collages, assemblages, and sculptural pieces, which overlap, intertwine, and enter into new relationships.
Tallová works sensitively with both the monumentality and fragility of the synagogue, currently in the early stages of restoration. She has deliberately positioned wooden structures around the columns in the central space, evoking the appearance of temporary support architecture or construction scaffolding. The patina of the walls, the exposed layers of masonry, and the unfinished nature of the interior become an organic part of the exhibition experience. The historic architecture serves not merely as a backdrop—its layered history poetically mirrors Tallová’s exploration of memory, its instability, and its transformation over time.
The expressive impact of the environment is further intensified by a specially designed lighting atmosphere. Light here does more than illuminate; it dramatically shapes the individual artefacts, accentuates material textures, and creates the impression of a space in which personal and collective memory is continually being rewritten. Tallová’s Archive of Fictional Memories thus becomes a poetic yet analytical inquiry into the mechanisms of preserving, constructing, and reinterpreting memories. It is precisely in the interplay between the synagogue’s authentic layers and the constructed layers of the artistic environment that a powerful dialogue emerges—between past and present, fact and fiction, what is preserved and what shifts in the flow of time. The exhibition becomes a sensitive space for reflecting on memory: how it originates, what fades from it, and what new meanings it may acquire in the context of today.
SYNAGOGUE STUPAVA
Stupava, Slovakia
Curated by Zuzana Pacáková
23. November - 16. December 2016
