Marie Tomanova – It Was Once My Universe

#1 min Josef Moucha, Marie Tomanová

9. 5. 2023

#44 EmpathyPhotobooksPortrait

In addition to Prague (Fotograf Gallery) and New York, the retrospective It Was Once My Universe has been presented in Tokyo, Paris and Antwerp. Marie visited Mikulov, South Moravia, which used to be home to the former painter, after eight years. With her reminiscences, she reveals what attracted, even disturbed her between 17 December 2018 and 5 January 2019: although many things look similar to what they did before she left for the USA, once anything is photographed, it takes on a different meaning. And it is this that the album unspectacularly offers us, with a foreword by Lucy Sante, a personal confession by the artist, and an afterword by art historian Thomas Beachdel. "Thomas has taught me a terribly important thing," the artist says, "namely, to select from thousands of photographs the final few dozen that, put together, make sense."

 

Marie Tomanova. It Was Once My Universe. Tokyo: Super Labo, 2022. ISBN 978-4-908512-61-2.

#44 EmpathyPhotobooksPortraitMemoryNarrativeIdentityDocumentAuthor's review

Josef Moucha

(1956) is a photographer and teacher at the Institute of Creative Photography of Silesian University in Opava. He has published essays Zážitek arény (The Experience of the Arena, 2004), a novella, Mimochodem (By the Way, 2004), essays Obrazy z dějin fotografie české (Images from the History of Czech Photography, 2011) and two picture books, Válka za studena / Fotografie ze základní vojenské služby v Československé lidové armádě (Serving It Cold: Photographs from Basic Training in the Czechoslovak People’s Army, 2017) and Doličné okamžiky (Incriminating Moments, 2018).

Marie Tomanová

lives and works in New York. Displacement, site, community, identity, memories – all these are among the central themes of her photographs and videos. Tomanová was nominated for the prestigious Louis Roedered Discovery Award 2021 at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in France, where she will introduce the newest works from the It Was Once My Universe cycle, curated by French curator Sonia Voss. The Hatje Cantz publishing house will put out her second monograph, New York New York, with a foreword by Kim Gordon and an introduction by Thomas Beachdel, in the summer of 2021. marietomanova.com

#44 Empathy

The ability to empathise with others is a construct that has only been around for a few centuries. This does not mean that such a skill did not exist until then. However, the concept of empathy creates a field in which this ability oscillates from understanding the other party to understanding the self. And because such a playground can be quite expansive, and the playing balls of empathy can be ping-ponged from one side to the other, we decided to dedicate an issue of the magazine to this field.

„Life passes and is mirrored in the image.“ – photographer Marie Tomanová in an open conversation

#7 min Marie Tomanová, Jan Hladonik

„Life passes and is mirrored in the image.“ – photographer Marie Tomanová in an open conversation

Fotograf zone InterviewSelfportrait

Marie Tomanová is one of the most prominent faces of the contemporary photographic scene, whose portraits explore intimacy, identity and the transformation of relationships over time. In this interview, she looks back on her exhibitions in Arles and New York, discusses her relationship with Libuše Jarcovjáková, shares her experience of making the documentary "The World Between Us", and talks about the power of mirroring that permeates her work.