Marcela Kindl Steffanová: Textilana Puzzles - Industrial Flower

The artist revis­its the indus­tri­al her­itage of the Liberec region—specifically the aes­thet­ics of the for­mer tex­tile fac­to­ry in Nové Měs­to pod Smrkem. By using found screen-printing films, she opens a visu­al dia­logue with the his­to­ry of the Czech tex­tile indus­try and its influ­ence on the cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty of the region. In her work, she incor­po­rates these recov­ered films, which were pre­vi­ous­ly used for screen print­ing. These arti­facts doc­u­ment hun­dreds of pat­terns that were once pro­duced in the fac­to­ry. Through their reuse, the artist authen­ti­cal­ly ref­er­ences the rich her­itage of tex­tile pro­duc­tion in the Czech Repub­lic, which played a sig­nif­i­cant role in both the cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of the region. The mir­rors in the piece Indus­tri­al Flower, car­ry­ing the mor­phol­o­gy of tiles from the for­mer Nové Měs­to tex­tile fac­to­ry, refer to the archi­tec­tur­al diver­si­ty of this now van­ished build­ing. They reflect both the present and traces of mem­o­ry. Once a proud her­itage, these struc­tures today stand on the thresh­old between cul­tur­al mon­u­ment and dust.

Marcela Kindl Stef­fanová has long been ded­i­cat­ed to autho­r­i­al and design jew­el­ry. In her work, she com­bines pre­cise crafts­man­ship with a per­son­al approach to the peo­ple for whom the jew­el­ry is cre­at­ed. While she most often works with pre­cious met­als, in her free artis­tic prac­tice she explores uncon­ven­tion­al mate­ri­als, exper­i­ments with inno­va­tions, and uses jew­el­ry to reflect on themes that res­onate with her at a giv­en moment. Beyond jew­el­ry, she is also inter­est­ed in site-specific instal­la­tions and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary projects. She is the founder of the inter­me­dia sym­po­sium Sym­po­ra in Raspe­na­va, which since 2017 has pro­vid­ed a space for artists from dif­fer­ent fields to meet and cre­ate col­lab­o­ra­tive projects. She has also par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al sym­posia, draw­ing on their atmos­phere for expe­ri­ence and inspi­ra­tion. Stef­fanová has also worked as a lec­tur­er at the Depart­ment of Design, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Archi­tec­ture, Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Liberec, where she shared her exper­tise in jew­el­ry and design with students.