Kristyna and Marek Milde’s cross-disciplinary practice spanning sculpture, photography, and installation mines an ever-evolving, anthropocentric landscape, its systems of power and communication in relationship to the natural world that may affect one’s connection to a place. Across its myriad manifestations, from the geographic to the architectural, the home lies at the center of their inquiry, providing a tangible framework where social, economic, and ecological issues collide in the context of the everyday. Exploring contemporary issues of displacement, isolation, and passive consumerism, their projects foreground hidden or overlooked interdependencies between nature and urbanization, further complicating their seemingly contradictory stance.
Conductive Fields brings together two bodies of work that underscore the transference of energy lines between natural springs and the built environment.
Engaging with the gallery’s architecture is In-Tree-Net (2011-2023), a site-specific installation consisting of a tree whose stems snake in from below the concrete floor, turning sharply at a 90-degree angle, before fanning its branches at the room’s edge. Resembling plumbing and electrical infrastructures normally concealed behind walls, the work blurs boundaries between indoors and outdoors, creating a visual go-between.
Alongside this interior occupation of the organic hangs a never-before-shown body of work providing a window out into the exterior. Based on photographs of powerlines entangled by tree branches encountered on city walks, Motherboards (2023)feature interlacing line patterns that are etched onto green circuit boards with gold inlay. In creating continuities between disparate energy forces into an integrated wiring system, Kristyna and Marek remind their audience of their joint primary sources – namely the sun, water, and air.
