10. 11. 2025 – 5. 12. 2025
Residency outcome presentation: 4. 12. 2025
The Wholegrain Attraction project further develops the author’s concept of post-fairground attractions and focuses on the visual tropes and affect of contemporary reality shows, the advertising aesthetics of fitness culture, and the imagery of fairground attractions. The ironically chosen title “Wholegrain” refers to marketing language and its suggestive promises of perfection, vitality, and health. In the project, it is a metaphor for the “wholeness” of staged entertainment, which is presented to viewers as a mixture of authenticity and spectacle. Wholegrain Attraction understands reality shows as a residue of amusement park culture, in which bodies and relationships are exposed to dramatic situations and constant observation. The project explores how the imagery of fairground attractions spills over into the contemporary visual language of media and advertising, where affect is a catalyst for entertainment and attention. At the same time, however, it observes the opposite pole of this affective overload—boredom, which, during sensory overload, becomes an inevitable by-product that turns entertainment into an empty routine. At fairs and in reality shows, it is therefore necessary to increase the intensity of emotions in order to cover up the repetitive structure: the cycle of excitement and exhaustion.
Daniela Ponomarevová (1998) is a visual artist whose work combines drawing, painting, objects, installations, and text. Through her concept of post-fairground attractions, she explores the visual language of the entertainment industry, popular culture, and the world of advertising. She focuses on the ways in which visual means, manipulative practices, and psychological strategies influence the viewer’s attention and emotions, and how they change in the context of the contemporary visual economy of attention. In her work, she combines a post-conceptual and semiotic approach with manual work, materiality, and DIY. She uses recycled cardboard as a medium for drawing and as a building element for creating modular objects and architectures. In her work, she deals with motifs of everyday life, consumer culture, and gastronomy, creating visual situations that combine humor and grotesqueness with critical analysis. Since 2024, she has been a doctoral student at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology.
