Sarah Dubná
(*1993, France)
Sarah Dubná is a visual artist living and working in Prague. In 2020 she completed her MA studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with a work that combines her characteristic interest in drawing and the topic of bee care, pointing to the parasitic-symbiotic relationship between the human and the non-human. Just as Dubná searches in her work as a tattoo artist for the limits of tolerability and permeability of the material (be it textile, wall or human skin), so too does the bee sting the body in order to heal and wound it at the same time. In addition to bees, other stinging organisms enter her work, which Dubná seeks to access within the discourses of posthumanism and queer theory. Since 2019, she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions (e.g. Dark Night of the Soul at the Oblastní galerie Vysočiny in Jihlava, 2021, or at the 4+4 Days in Motion Festival, 2020) and has contributed to publications about tattooing outside of salons (Poke Poke Poke, 2020-2022).
Research interests: interspecies communication, queer body, queer theory, interdisciplinarity
Research
This research project draws on personal experience of tattooing, beekeeping, artistic practice and queer identity, and focuses on exploring the principle of poking and stinging as a method of mutual understanding and narration. The work aims to explore two thematic areas, namely, the possibility of interspecies communication through the search for stinging animals’ own identity, where the tattoo artist’s needle mimics the stinging ability of bees and other stinging animals, including plants. The second level will focus on the issue of queer physicality in connection with tattoos as a way of talking about one's own body.
