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Bianca Poláková

The work of Bianca Poláková (2000, Bratislava, Slovakia) is situated on the borderline between the visual and the performative. She develops installation and performance art with a strong focus on sensory experience, storytelling, ecofeminism, and immersive narratives that investigate how mythological and folkloric motifs can re-enchant contemporary relationships with the natural world. Through sensory materials, symbolic gestures, and participatory elements, she creates poetic situations that invite audiences to reconsider the boundaries between human and more-than-human bodies. She also creates larger environments exploring imaginative futures, often using the visitor as a co-actor.

Her projects draw on ancestral knowledge, ecological processes, and speculative imagination, positioning art as a ritual space for transformation and reconnection. Working with organic matter, ephemeral media, and performative actions, she examines themes of memory, disappearance, and ecological empathy, proposing new ways of perceiving and inhabiting the world.

Alongside her artistic practice, she engages in theoretical research on ecological performance and contemporary myth-making. Her work has been presented in exhibitions and interdisciplinary contexts across Italy, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, and the United States, and she continues to develop projects that bridge artistic practice, research, and environmental thought. She currently lives and works in Bratislava (Slovakia) at her studio in the independent cultural center Nová Cvernovka.

studies

2023–2025

Master of Fine Arts, Sculpture and Installation, Rome University of Fine Arts, Rome, Italy

2019–2023

BA (Hons), Painting and Printmaking Department, Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

2022–2023

Study Mobility, Ceramic Studio, Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia

2021–2022

ERASMUS+ Study Mobility, Sculpture Department, Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czech Republic

awards/scholarships/
residencies

2026

Mawddach Residency, Eryri/Snowdonia National Park, Wales

2025

Playing Memories — a residency project for the creation and production of multidisciplinary performances in an international setting, presented in BASE (Milan, Italy) and Sala Colonne (Paris, France)

2024

Collaboration Scholarship, Winter and Summer School Office, RUFA, Rome, Italy

2023

Dean’s Award for the Best Bachelor Work, Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

Excellent Academic Merit Scholarship, Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

courses and workshops

2025

Art as Mayhem Instead of Career — Masterclass with Ragnar Kjartansson, RUFA, Rome

Deconstruct the Gesture with Matilde Sambo, RUFA, Rome

2024

Performance Masterclass with Silvia Giambrone, RUFA, Rome

Painting Masterclass with Mauro Di Silvestre, RUFA, Rome

2023

Project Brief: Save the Planet — Design for Circular Economy, RUFA, Rome

2022

Dubí Course in Ceramics, Czech Republic

Screen Printing on Clay with Teja Hlacer, La Meridiana International School of Ceramics in Tuscany, Certaldo, Italy

2019–2020

Figurama Workshop with Boris Jirků, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

selected solo exhibitions

2024

What We Look for Beyond Seeing, RUFA Space, Rome, Italy
Presented on the occasion of the Contemporary Art Foundations Committee’s 10th anniversary, in collaboration with Pastificio Cerere Foundation, Memmo Foundation, and NOMAS Foundation

selected group exhibitions

2025

In Between — Lakeside Park, Bratislava, Slovakia

2024

Phygital, RUFA Space, Rome

Ambiente Festival, Parco della Caffarella, Rome

2021

ZVTFX, Gallery FX, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

Tehláreň Festival, Liptovský Mikuláš

2020

Figurama, Gallery FX, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia

performances and lectures

2026

MADE IN NC — public lecture on current practice in Nová Cvernovka Cultural center, Bratislava, Slovakia

Heaven is a Place on Earth — performance at CCAM Fest: Fluxus – The Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM), New Haven, CT

2025

Nibble Nibble Gnaw — performance at the Performance Cluster 2025: Discipline / Desire / Surveillance”, MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts

What Lives in the Space Under the Skin — performance at Fascinatrix festival, Nová Cvernovka, Bratislava, Slovakia

M.A.K. (Milk of Ancestral Knowledge) — performance at Performance-Box: From Roots to Branches, RUFA Space, Rome, Italy

Performing Myth, Enacting Ecology: Ritual in Contemporary Environmental Performance Art — public lecture at RUFA Space, Rome, Italy

2024

Masticare la Lingua — Performance at Performance Cluster – Beyond the Pale, RUFA, Rome, Italy

Too Sweet For Me — performance, Via Benaco 12, RUFA, Rome, Italy

Skin 2000 Balloons and Let Them Fly — performance, Via Benaco 12, RUFA, Rome, Italy

Performing Sustainability: Integrating Performance Art into Fashion Narratives — lecture for students of Sustainable Fashion Design department, Ostiense Campus, RUFA, Rome, Italy

2023

Whisper Sweet Nothings to Me — performance, Via Benaco 12, Rome, Italy

publications

2021

Winner of publication in Pankumenta Magazine, Berlin, Germany

artistic collaborations/
internships

2024–2025

Studio Marta Jovanović — Internship, Rome, Italy

2024

Davide Dormino studio — Internship, Rome, Italy

2023

Planetary Garden — Curation and scenography, Fashion Performance Giardino Planetario, Rome, Italy

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