Art as Resistance:
A Conversation with Klara Kusa
Feburary 2025
Klara Kusa
@klara.kusa
Klara Kusa is an emerging artist and activist, she appreciates techniques of appropriation (from post-war art, philosophy, research art to medicine), experimentation, and recycling of various found objects and materials. In her work, she uses performative gestures to create site-specific installations mixing sound, photographs, drawings, own movement in space, video, and archive materials. These strategies can be understood as institutional critique. Many of the author's projects are reactionary, the reactions towards them often create another project or its continuation. Her artistic practice is experimental, utilizing the tools and strategies of post-conceptual art.
She lives and studies in Prague.
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Klara Kusa’s practice is an act of defiance—against institutions, rigid academic structures, and the commodification of artistic expression. Her work spans performance, sound, photography, and archival research, creating site-specific installations that challenge societal norms and power structures. In this conversation, Kusa reflects on her unconventional path, the struggles of being an emerging artist in Slovakia, and the necessity of making art outside of institutional constraints. With a sharp critical eye and an unapologetic voice, she shares her thoughts on appropriation, activism, and the precarious balance between survival and creative integrity.
Your practice spans performance, sound, photography, video, and archival materials. How do these diverse mediums interact in your installations, and what inspired you to embrace this multidisciplinary approach?
KK: I feel like since I started doing art, I needed to switch from medium to medium to express myself in the best way possible. I applied for the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. I did not get in, and I applied multiple times. Therefore, I went to Charles University in Prague to pursue a career like Judith Butler or whatever my naïve dream was back then. I really thought I could beat the phallogocentric system, pursue gender studies, and work hard to prove how messed up society is.
I gave up half a year later, I remember they told me to memorize footnotes and I couldn’t do that. I still hold the view that the education system is flawed and rotten to its core.Real education happens outside, by traveling, talking to homeless people who lost everything, protesting in the streets, and hitchhiking to unknown places. So that’s how I dropped out, I went back to high school, crazy step.
By the time I was 24, I started doing art, and I thought I’d be lucky if I got a cleaner’s job at an art school one day - because the art that I was doing back then was, simply put, awful. So, I took a job cleaning art spaces and finished my Bachelor’s degree. As you can see, I am anything but a typical art student. I actually attended three high schools and this is my 4th university. Currently I am starting an internship at KABK in Den Haag.
Many of your works, such as “Visibility is a Trap,” critique societal structures and institutions. Can you share how this project—or a similar one—was influenced by the audience’s reactions and how it evolved as a result?
KK: Visibility is a trap about my institutional trap. I got caught up by not being silent and by critiquing authorities within institutions. Up until today, I think almost nobody actually understood the message and the project was exhibited at AFAD in Bratislava as part of my studio work and at Garaza Kamba in Zagreb in collaboration with the FAKI festival curated by Sara Mikelić.
The message of the project is that you can choose to fight for the truth and for what is right at a given moment, but it will come at a cost - a lot, possibly even your reputation. You can raise your voice, but eventually, you become a part of the system you hate. In the final stage, your voice is commodified. The results of those steps, as you can hear in the video, have been tough on me. Am I too visible for the system? I guess so. Foucault was right about the institutions and the power misuse and Chomsky goes even further. Yet, he maintained that position at MIT. That is an interesting contradiction. I love them both.
The concept of appropriation is central to your work, with influences from philosophy, post-war art, and medicine. Could you elaborate on how these sources shape your creative decisions and conceptual framework?
KK: All of these disciplines stem from my relationship with them and I guess appropriation is a very natural way of doing it in terms of post-conceptual art. And then, I have a lot of disciplines I am inspired by. Philosophy is a second degree I applied for when I went to Prague, and I succeeded but I decided to decline. However, I had to read some books and analyze them for admissions. I read Kierkegaard and his existential paradigm touched me deeply back in high school. I always try to return to philosophy when I am at a crossroads of life so to speak. Right now, I have like 20 philosophy books on my list but I am very impatient. I battle with Lacanian graphs but these people are geniuses, and every time I get to read this, I realize how little knowledge of the field I have.
Medicine has somehow stayed with me due to my background, my father is a doctor and my mother used to be a nurse, and they worked together in one hospital, so, I joke about being born in between the medical tubes. I wanted to study medicine for a long time, but I realized I would be a terrible doctor because I collapse every time when I see more blood than usual. It is actually a miracle that I have parents working in the medical field, I have less than zero potential to be good at this. Nevertheless, the aspect of helping people stayed with me and I used it when I started to do social work which is a degree my mother studied. I volunteered in a homeless shelter and later on, established an NGO called Psychiatria nie je na hlavu devoted to people with mental health struggles, and later on, many amazing people took over the project.
Visibility is a trap, Exhibition view, T3 – kulturny prostriedok, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2022 (left)
Performance, Faki festival, Garaza Kamba, Zagreb, Croatia, 2024 (right)
In “Skins and Thoughts From the Underground,” you collaborated with Adriana Ondrusova and Lin Yi Cheng. How do collaborative dynamics shape your creative process, and what do you seek in collaborators?
KK: I was invited to collaborate in the gallery called RARE cultural space which is located in the underground of Academy of Fine Arts and Design by Slovak artist and curator Adriana Ondrušová. I hate doing solo exhibitions, I put myself under an enormous amount of pressure when doing so. For this reason, I try to avoid it, and I am scared of it due to the politics shifting and silencing of the artists in Slovakia. So, I thought - ok, I will invite Lin Cheng, a talented Taiwanese performance artist I have been attending the same studio with her at AVU in Prague, maybe we can work on something together. We were setting everything up for about three days and then, two hours before the exhibition, the whole thing was canceled. I will not elaborate on the reasons. I do believe in the power of collaboration and different cultures coming together. I really do. The issue is, after this, I collapsed and got Covid again. And so, I have decided it will be either my health or the future of this country. I chose the first. I decided to pursue the academic sphere instead of activism in the streets of Slovakia, and I have done it because the pressure was mounting too high. There are other people doing that and I honestly am not the best person that can feel comfortable holding a microphone and speaking in front of crowds of people. Let others set the culture and art free again in my country. I will read Kant meanwhile.
Your photobook Layers (Priestory spomínania) explores themes of memory and trauma. How does publishing allow you to express ideas differently compared to installations or site-specific works?
KK: I truly believe Layers (Priestory spomínania)* is the best project I have done so far - and it really took on a life of its own beyond what I initially intended. The story of its making is extremely traumatizing, and it all started with a simple gesture - I simply stopped attending the studio at school. I went to the National Archive in Prague instead.
Firstly, let me defend my position. I do believe that my time is short and by being almost 30 years old, I want to spend it wisely. The time I spent in the archives was far more productive, and I learned a lot. Furthermore, I collaborated with a professor who specializes in books which seemed like a very logical step because I wanted to publish a book out of my findings in the archive.
I worked with Kateryna Khramtsova, a Ukrainian LGBT+ artist who was not admitted to the university. I gave her my camera to shoot my performances because I know she is talented and I was pissed she didn’t get in. A strong gesture of going against the authorities. And so, they fought back to maintain their position.
The project—and the pressure I faced—broke me. I printed the book, received harsh critique, and in response, I destroyed the book. From its remaining pages, I created an installation in a Jewish cemetery called Layers (Priestory traumy). I received a “D” for this project.
Look, I don’t care about grades. I care about justice, truth, equality, genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, and the fact that 99% of politicians lie while we passively accept it through the media. So damn, let’s face the facts we live in. Let’s talk about stateless people with nothing to eat because of post-colonialism. Let’s talk about the Middle East, migration crises. Let’s do that—and I’ll gladly attend that studio debate and argue about it.
* “Priestory spomínania” can be translated to English as “Spaces of remembrance”. ”Priestory traumy” can be translated to English as “Places of trauma”
Newspaper prints about the Stalin’s monument, leftover trash material found in the Jewish Cemetery as a part of an exhibition Layers (Priestory traumy), Telc, Czechia, 2024 (left)
Duck bones received by Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, AVU, Prague, Czechia, 2024 (right)
Looking ahead, are there specific themes, mediums, or projects you are excited to explore? How do you see your practice evolving in the next few years?
KK: I hope I will eventually get into philosophy but it requires a lot of time. I want to read everything from Plato to Deleuze and that takes years and those years cannot go without exhibiting because I need some money to make as well. So, it will be somewhat of a gamble on how to raise my voice against all the institutionally abhorrent practices, maintain my position in the actual institution I go against, and get some money by doing art. It takes a skill but I believe we have to resist, that is the role of people who have the balls to do it and there are very few people who are willing to risk it all.
There is also a possibility I will relocate to another country, and start again but then, I will be leaving a lot of unfinished work behind. The issue is, when I moved into Prague, I said never again will I do this, never again will I start from scratch. You are torn apart from everything, you leave all the friends, and relationships you have been building for years including your family behind.
I remember that before I left, I composed my first proper solo show titled Post-absurdum show with a curator Lucia G. Stach who had curated the Czech and Slovak pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale among many other important post-conceptual shows. It was an extreme success, people chatted up until midnight and there was this guy that he told me, you have no idea what you have just achieved. I did not care back then. I had no idea, until I had attended a lot of shows and realized this was a special moment, and I have no idea whether I will get it again in my career. And so, I went from exhibiting in Slovakia and having two jobs to being a foreigner delivering leaflets near the Charles Bridge for approximately 5 euros an hour. It was like somebody just poured acid over my body.
I did this 3 times a week. I came home, I had terrible back pain because I couldn’t sit while doing that job and of course, this was controlled. One day, I got extremely pissed and I left and never came back, and went straight into job searches again. This precarious situation taught me a lot. Finally, I found several well-paid gigs but it took me more than one year, too many hours of painful research, and constant pushing of the authorities, to finally maintain my position and work on my terms for the amount of money I deserve.
Your projects frequently engage with found objects and recycled materials. How do you approach sourcing and transforming these materials, and what role do they play in the narratives you construct?
KK: Being an emerging artist is precarious, people are just scared of stating this out loud. I struggle with it on a daily basis. However, in comparison to people that have to work full-time and study, I believe I am very privileged. Nevertheless, I come from Slovakia where the art market does not exist and there are like three collectors in the country and you are happy when you get your exhibition in a regional gallery and receive an artist fee that is somewhere around 100 to 300 Euros and that is a lot of money. For a solo exhibition!
I have spoken with artists and curators doing this for 20+ years. They all somehow learned to exist in the system. So, I decided to complain and that is somewhat of a risky position because I am still an art student and you should do this profession for free or something of that sort which I declined. So, recycling goes out of that system that is completely defunct. I collect things in the street, in the garbage, in the unwanted bookshelves, everywhere. I do really believe great art can be done out of nothing because it is about the strength of your story, not the price of the canvas. I know, I am old school but believe me, unless you are doing this for a client in the market to sell, then the strength of your story matters the most.
A book spine (left) and a book page (right) taken from the City Library in Bratislava in the basement filled with unwanted books, as a part of the exhibition post-absurdum, Flatgallery, Bratislava, Slovakia, 2023
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