Tomáš Roček (CZ)

Tomáš Roček is a multimedia artist working primarily with video and text, but also engages with other media such as sound, painting, performance, and object-based work. One of the key aspects of his artistic practice is recycling and sustainability. He has presented exhibitions such as Uncertain Cartographies at Prague City Gallery, Petrohradská kolektiv, Bludný kámen, among others. His poetry collection It’s Raining in Toronto was published by Malvern in 2021. He is also the founder of the Trsy festival, which explores sustainable connections between art and landscape.

During the residency, Tomáš will focus on video (in the form of an essay) and painting. The central theme is a search for personal position and values against the backdrop of “wellness culture,” socio-political crises, and conflicts in a world marked by growing fatigue with democracy.

At the core of his work is an exploration of movement – a process in which he returns, almost therapeutically, to archival and diary entries, years’ worth of collected found footage, photographs, texts he has both written and read, and letters. Through this personal archive, Tomáš seeks to trace narratives and trajectories that do not necessarily define who he is, but rather how he relates to who he could become. The result is a multi-layered video grounded in a dialogue between visual material and an emerging textual component. The images (and paintings) act as access points to memory – mapping emotionally surfacing narratives, whether through self-portraits, playful drawings, or fragments of recollection.

This work is not about reliving or resolving trauma (which, to some extent, we all share), but about understanding the frameworks through which we think about it, and the limitations those frameworks impose. It is an attempt to capture narratives shaped by personal and emotional shifts – and to reflect on how the mechanisms behind “self-healing” shape our values and ways of acting.

The residency program is supported using public funding by the Slovak Arts Council. The Slovak Arts Council is the main partner of this project.