CARYOPHONIUM — THE POWER OF TENDERNESS

Caryophonium – the Power of Tenderness is a free installation/memories devoted to women fighting in the WWII.
Female soldiers, workers, nurses or mothers – all of them fought as they could. They were beaten, tortured, violated. They were helping the men to win the war. They were striving for peace.
Caryophonium is a memorial with genius loci on the Slovak fields and meadows in the surroundings of villages burnt down by the Nazis. The visual message of a tank and carnation gives the impression of an (in) conspicuous element in the given space. The user completes the work with listening to the silence and sounds of nature, uses the object as a lookout. Opening the pages creates a megaphone and using the voice and voice intensity they imitate the torture violence that was committed on women.
The authorʼs statement emphasises the personal character of the human memory and subjectivity of feeling the past. At the same time, it is a tool of generational message and a memento of the events inscribed in the individual, historical, cultural and collective memory.