Lucia Sceranková | The Raindrop That Lost Its Water
30 April – 26 June 2026
Zahorian & Van Espen, Mierová

We live in a time of great change. These changes unfold against the backdrop of everyday situations. Invisible at first glance, yet they are often discussed—between you and me, in the pages of newspapers, on the radio, and on television screens. Through the language of numbers, graphs, and terms we often can’t visualize, through striking images of destruction and empty phrases. Yet the meaning still seems to elude us. If we understood, we would act differently. We would have been pulling together long ago. After all, nothing less than peace, safety, and our own home is at stake—the environment in which we live. That is what this is all about.

So what is it that prevents us from understanding—our surroundings, our own bodies, one another? Is it perhaps because the language we use to describe our present is becoming obsolete? Could it be the deeply ingrained dichotomy in our minds regarding the relationship between humans and nature? Do we stand above it, beside it, or in the midst of it all? Or is it due to technological progress, which brings us new knowledge but at the same time distracts us from understanding? Isn’t it precisely the findings of contemporary science that remind us of the fact that everything is connected to everything else? How can we convince ourselves that this is truly the case? Description alone is not enough. Language, it seems, fails us. Is it possible to find an alternative code of communication? And could art—which communicates differently than we are accustomed to—be such a code? Or must we experience everything firsthand? Again and again. Only then will we arrive at conviction, understanding, and the need to share our experience and move forward?

Could an experience mediated through art be the catalyst for potential change? This is precisely the direction my reflection is taking. A profound experience of one’s own physical essence also lies at the heart of Lucie Sceranková’s exhibition The Raindrop That Lost Its Water. It stems from the experience of an organism thrown off balance, a vessel filled to the brim, and a sense of discomfort arising from a disruption of synergy.

The motif that Lucia Sceranková has explored in her work from the very beginning is water. She understands it as a mutable principle. She is fascinated by its visual mutability, boundless fluidity, and possibilities for metaphorical interpretation. While in her previous series, Heart Seas, we were able to feel the power of its flow within our own bodies for the first time through Lucia’s photographs, in this exhibition she delves even deeper into exploring the connection between the elements and the human body. Through her latest series of photographs featured in this exhibition, she deepens her own—and, along with it, our own—experience by adding another dimension.

The sponges captured in her photographs seem to evoke tactile associations, as if we could feel their resilient texture between our fingers. We perceive their water-soaked structure, their fragile balance, and their internal tension. They give the impression that a single touch or the pressure of a finger could cause all the absorbed water to gush out. The eye captured in one of them sheds a large salty tear, which runs down the dewy, porous skin to moist lips and returns to the circulation of bodily fluids—it soaks in, merges with the flow, and then leaves the body in the form of sweat or saliva, connecting with you in a fleeting touch, evaporating. It changes its state just as in the individual photographs in the exhibition. Always different, yet always the same—water. Sometimes it envelops you like smoke rising from wet wood; at other times, its veil shifts the perspective of your gaze. It soothes in the waves of the ocean tide, making you feel gravity in your own body. Like energy, it flows through the exhibition, nourishing the imagination and feeding the mind. It brings an experience that touches us. Often, unexpectedly, in a physical way.

I bet you remember the last time you were burning damp leaves and the wind shifted, blowing the smoke your way. How it enveloped you, wrapping you like an intangible shirt. Until it took your breath away and made your head spin… And then you could still feel it on your skin for a long time. As if it had permeated your entire being. Only the water from your hot evening bath washed it away, and along with it, the fatigue from that endless day when you feel like a wrung-out sponge. You submerge yourself under the water. At first, the bubbles tickle your ears. Then water fills the spaces they’ve just vacated. You soak it in through every pore, down to the very last one. You become it, and it becomes you. Where does it end, and where does it begin?

Do these images evoke such intense emotions in us precisely because we are largely made of water? And by what means does the artist manage to evoke them? Is it because she thinks through her photographs down to the smallest detail? Because in her work, everything is connected to everything else? The choice of subject, paper, and material, which speaks through its physical qualities—it “speaks” through the image. But also the chosen scale, the method of the final presentation, and the lighting. Each of these aspects adds another dimension, intertwining in a resulting synergy, deepening the experience and expanding the field of emotional resonance. Can such awakenings of our own sensitivity lead us to a shift in thinking and an awareness of our mutual interconnectedness? / Nina Moravcová

The artist would like to express her gratitude :
Silvia Van Espen, Jozef Zahorian, Tomáš Kmeť, Lucia Račková, Nina Moravcová, Lukáš Latta, Ľubomír Nagy, Janka Hajduová, András Cséfalvay, Róbert Slovák, Jana Hojstričová and Marián Grolmus