MIMICRY As if objects were meanings

Johanna Hullár

Nominated by

2024

‘Mimicry’ is inspired by how seeing something in something else affects our mind and world-view. How objects resemble nature, how we are always looking for similarities and a connection, a nexus, a unifying reason to objects. How objects can develop characters and capacity for mimicry, while their meanings are constantly challenged as their visual aspect changes. I’d like to invite the viewer to my colourful environment, to discover something they have seen before: “Is what I see exactly the same, or has its meaning shifted?”* Mimicry as protection, deception, survival strategy, I am looking at emotional stages of isolation, destruction, loneliness, presented as a multidisciplinary installation. Freezing and becoming fluid again, sensing simultaneity in time, through the processes of water and other natural and man-made elements. Mixing and manipulating the ingredients they are becoming metaphors and protagonists of the abstract mise en scènes and corrupted still-life landscapes. Are they longing for an unseen new environment or resembling the memory, a feeling of the lost paradise? I'm fascinated by the metamorphoses water is capable of going through, capturing a moment, creating an own organism - nature morte - frozen in time. The imaginary worlds are conserved in death, slowly melting away and becoming life again. A place yet to be discovered.

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The Artist

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Johanna Hullár

Nominated in

Photo Elysée

Lives and Works in

Zurich

Johanna Hullár is a Zurich-based visual artist working with photography, video installations and timebased sculptures. She graduated from the HTW Berlin with a degree in communication design and holds a master’s degree in photography from ECAL, University of Art and Design Lausanne. Hullár’s practice explores themes of connection, materiality, time and perception. She investigates new ways of mixing still and moving images, playing with notions of surreality and reality, and generated objects to reflect on possible futures and the interaction of (wo)man-made and natural materials, presented through a humorous and feminine prism. Hullár’s transdisciplinary approach opens up new visual spaces, offering visitors a sensory experience with sculptural arrangements frozen in ice, constantly in motion and changing state. Laureate of the Swiss Design Awards 2024 and Prix de l’ECAL 2020, and nominee for the Prix Mobilière 2024, Hullár made her institutional debut at Kunsthalle Mannheim in 2021, followed by the solo shows Floral Landscape (2021), Burning Desires (2022) and Material Landscape (2023) held in Zurich. She has exhibited internationally, including at Swiss House Milano (2022), Jungkunst Winterthur (2021), Tokyo Photographic Research (2019), Biennale dell’Immagine Chiasso (2019) and Paris Photo (2018). In 2023, she was resident at La Becque artist residency and in 2025 at Plateforme 10 x Fiminco Fondation in Paris.