Short Program

The materials Kata Tranker frequently uses in her work include paper, clay, and wood which she complements with found objects, everyday items, and archival photographs. In her conceptual installations, the artist’s focus is on human evolution and our gradual alienation from nature, the boundaries between reality and image, and the search for identity. The narrative dimension in her works, which bears traces of personal memories, is based on associations and sensations rather than events. In the video titled "Short Program", which Tranker produced early in her artistic career, as the pages of a flipbook turn, a figure skater depicted in watercolours spins in mid-air, falls, and gets up. The work takes its name from the standard figure skating programme in which skaters are required to perform predetermined jumps, spins and moves, and are therefore unable to display their individual talents and strengths. With this video, Tranker follows an indirect path, indicating the artists’ position and conditions in which they work, as well as her own practice.