Barbora Šlapetová

Books

ULTRA-SUPER-NATURAL 2022 (DOX Centre for Contemporary Art Prague, the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, the Václav Havel Library, KANT)

ULTRA SUPER NATURAL

How to reach the Sky 2015 (Euromedia Group - Universum)

How to reach the Sky 2015

Do Not Come Any Closer 2009 (Euromedia Group & GZS)

Do Not Come Any Closer

Why the Night is Black 2004 (Kant)

Why the Night is Black

In the 1990s, tribes of the last natural people who were still virtually unaffected by civilization were still living deep in the jungles of West Papua. Like their ancestors, they travelled by smoke to the upper reaches of the world, knew the taste of human flesh, and encountered spirits of all shapes, types, and sizes.

Me and Lukas Rittstein, we knew immediately that this was the last place on Earth where a few hundred Stone Age people still remained in the jungle, ancient chiefs who lived and thought like at the beginning of the ages. It was clear that these last natural people would be leaving the darkness of the Stone Age, because they would want to live longer and in a more modern way. We realized that we had the last opportunity to record these original ancient people through the eyes of art before this first human culture disappears forever.

Expeditions to the same area of West Papua followed (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2017, 2022) so we could collect stories and tales that affected our art. All of their true stories are real and thus truthful, because the natural is not separated from the supernatural. In this way, artistic material was created illustrating the spirit of the last natural people, in many media: photographs, sculptures, videos, drawings, and also in a film.

©2006 – 2023 Barbora Šlapetová