Klára Hosnedlová：Echo Strata
Writer: Wenqiu Zhang
Date: 11/03/2026
Keywords: living organisms / biological / food production/ future archaeology
Raw hemp, sandstone, mycelium, steel frames, discarded garments, and delicate embroidery embedded within sculptural forms—materials that might initially appear incompatible come together to form an unusual kind of coexistence within the same space. Whether inert matter or living organisms still in the process of growth, these elements collectively constitute the material foundation of Echo, a solo exhibition by Klára Hosnedlová presented across the 9×9×9 and South Gallery spaces at White Cube Bermondsey in London. In Hosnedlová’s practice, materials function as more than a formal language; they operate as carriers of time, each pointing toward a different temporal scale: the time of plant growth, the slow accumulation of geological sediment, and the cycles of biological decay and regeneration. When these materials are placed side by side, they no longer narrate a linear history. Instead, they form a layered temporal structure, compressed like multiple strata within the same geological formation. Through this way, the artist introduces a perspective akin to “future archaeology”: these materials appear to belong simultaneously to the past and the present, while also resembling traces of a future that has not yet occurred.
Klára Hosnedlová，Untitled (from the series embrace), 2025
进入9×9×9展厅，观众首先面对的是一座近乎纪念碑式的巨大装置Untitled (from the series embrace)。由未经处理的生麻编织而成的庞大挂毯从天花板垂落至地面，粗糙而蓬松的纤维如同某种有机体的根系向四周散开，在光洁的画廊地板上随意蔓延，使整个空间弥漫着一种介于峭壁苔藓与洞穴遗迹之间的氛围。不同深浅的棕色与暗红色在纤维表面交织，宛如铁锈般的色泽仿佛经历了长时间风化与腐蚀后的自然沉积，使这件作品更像是一件刚被发掘的考古遗物，而非一件当代艺术装置。
在这片近乎野性的纤维“藤蔓”中央，一块灰白色的砂岩浮雕嵌入其中，像是从纤维内部生长出的异物。浮雕表面呈现出类似骨骼化石的形态，而其中心则镶着一件细致入微的刺绣作品：两只手捏着交替的火柴，试图通过已燃的火柴传递火种。在古老的神话中，普罗米修斯为人类盗取火种，被视为文明诞生的象征；而在Hosnedlová的图像中，火焰不再来自神祇，而是在人类的两只手之间被小心传递的微弱光源。在这里，文明不再需要宏大的历史叙事来证明自身，它可以被指间那一瞬间的火焰所隐喻，并在无数次看似微小的传递中得以延续。
Entering the 9×9×9 gallery, the viewer is first confronted with the nearly monumental installation Untitled (from the series embrace). A massive tapestry woven from untreated raw hemp descends from the ceiling to the floor, its coarse, fluffy fibers spreading outward like the root system of some organic organism. They trail freely across the polished gallery floor, filling the space with an atmosphere somewhere between moss-covered cliffs and the remnants of a cave. Different shades of brown and dark red intertwine across the surface of the fibers. Their rust-like tones appear as though formed through long processes of weathering and corrosion, giving the work the appearance of a recently unearthed archaeological artifact rather than a contemporary art installation.
At the center of this wild tangle of fibrous “vines,” a pale grey sandstone relief is embedded within the mass, as if it had grown out of the fibers themselves like a special body. The surface of the relief resembles the texture of skeletal fossils, while at its center sits an exquisitely detailed embroidery: two hands holding alternating matches, attempting to pass the flame from one already lit match to another. In ancient mythology, Prometheus steals fire for humankind, an act often understood as the symbolic beginning of civilization. In Hosnedlová’s image, however, the flame no longer descends from the gods; instead, it appears as a fragile light carefully passed between two human hands. Here, civilization no longer requires a grand historical narrative to assert its existence. It can be evoked by that fleeting flame between fingertips, sustained through countless acts of transmission that may appear small, yet quietly carry it forward.
展览现场 Exhibition View
在展厅另一侧，正对着巨大生麻挂毯的是一幅精致而小巧的刺绣作品：一根纤维正被火焰点燃，火焰沿着细线缓慢蔓延。这个看似微小的瞬间，与中央装置中点燃火柴的图像形成呼应。火既是人类最早掌握的技术之一，也是文明得以展开的象征；而纤维被点燃的瞬间，则暗示着火所具有的另一重属性——它既是创造的力量，也是毁灭的开端。
数百万年的直立行走史、数十万年的智人演化史、数千年的文明史，以及不过数百年的科技发展史……人类在这颗蓝色星球上的存在留下了难以计数的痕迹。对于未来的考古学家而言，人类所生活的当下甚至可预见的未来，将会以怎样的方式被理解与发掘？在Hosnedlová的Echo所构建的叙事框架中，流淌在时间长河中的各种物质本身或许正是答案。时间并非静止的线性序列，而是在不断堆积与重写之中折叠和延展。随着时间的推移，人类对“现在”的过去的研究也在不断叠加与生长。如果今天的考古学家研究的是陶器与玉器等物质文化遗存、DNA人类学所揭示的族群迁徙、植物种子与动物骨骼所保留下来的环境信息，以及建筑砖瓦所记录的文明结构，那么未来的考古学家所面对的材料，必然将在这些基础之上延展得更远。
古生物学家Jan Zalasiewicz与Sarah Gabbott在《被丢弃后：科技化石将如何成为我们的最终遗产》中指出，在过去七十年间，人类制造的物质总量已经逐渐超过地球上一切生物体的总和。与自然物质不同，这些人造材料往往能够抵御风雨侵蚀，即便被丢弃，也会长期存在于自然环境之中。因此，在他们看来，人造矿物、合成塑料、混凝土碎块以及油墨纸张，都可能成为未来考古学家用以辨认人类文明的“技术化石”。在White Cube的South Gallery展厅中，由Hosnedlová的多件装置作品所构成的空间仿佛正是来自这样一层尚未被命名的未来地层。在这里，人工结构逐渐被有机生长所侵蚀，人类活动的痕迹在时间之中缓慢变形，成为一种既熟悉又陌生的遗迹景观。
On the opposite side of this gallery, facing the massive hemp tapestry, is a delicate and small-scale embroidery: a single fiber is being lit by a flame, which slowly travels along the thin thread. This seemingly minor moment echoes the image of the match being lit in the central installation. Fire is both one of the earliest technologies mastered by humankind and a symbol through which civilization unfolds. Yet the moment when the fiber catches fire also suggests another aspect of flame—its dual nature as both a force of creation and the beginning of destruction.
Millions of years of upright walking, hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, several thousand years of civilization, and only a few hundred years of technological development—human existence on this blue planet has left behind traces beyond counting. For the archaeologists of the future, how might the present moment we inhabit, and even the foreseeable future, be understood and excavated? Within the narrative framework constructed in Hosnedlová’s Echo, the materials themselves—flowing within the long currents of time—may already offer an answer. Time does not unfold as a static, linear sequence; rather, it folds and extends through continuous accumulation and rewriting. As time progresses, humanity’s investigation of the past of its own “present” continues to layer and grow. If today’s archaeologists study material remains such as pottery and jade artifacts, patterns of human migration revealed through DNA anthropology, environmental information preserved in plant seeds and animal bones, and the structures of civilizations recorded in bricks and tiles, then the materials encountered by future archaeologists will inevitably extend far beyond these foundations.
Paleontologists Jan Zalasiewicz and Sarah Gabbott note in Discarded: How Technofossils Will Be Our Ultimate Legacy that over the past seventy years, the total mass of materials produced by humans has gradually come to exceed the combined biomass of all living organisms on Earth. Unlike natural substances, many of these manufactured materials can resist weathering and erosion; even after being discarded, they persist in the natural environment for extended periods of time. For this reason, Zalasiewicz and Gabbott suggest that artificial minerals, synthetic plastics, fragments of concrete, and printed paper may one day serve as “technofossils”—material traces through which future archaeologists might recognize the presence of human civilization.
Klára Hosnedlová，Shared Fire, 2025（ledt)
Klára Hosnedlová，Corset, 2025(right)
Klára Hosnedlová，Corset, 2025(right)
进入这个展厅后，空间的尺度与视觉结构突然发生变化。一座由钢制格栅构成的平台占据了展厅中央，观众沿着这些金属格栅行走，在略微悬空的结构上俯视下方或环顾四周的景观。金属结构的冷硬几何，与堆积在钢架下方的大量落叶形成鲜明对比，使这里既像一座临时搭建的工业脚手架，又像一处尚未完成的考古发掘现场，整个空间呈现出一种介于实验室与废墟之间的气氛。同时，数根细长的金属立柱从地面升起，每根立柱上都悬挂着一幅小型刺绣作品。这些图像大多聚焦于人体的局部：拨开潮湿头发时显露出的脊柱、被丝线缠绕的手指、在石面上书写的双手，以及被金属饰物包裹的牙齿。与前一展厅中嵌入岩石结构的刺绣作品相呼应，这些图像同样以极为细致的针线勾勒出皮肤的纹理、毛发的细节以及微妙的身体动作。在Hosnedlová的装置系统中，这些看似短暂的行为瞬间与身体碎片指向另一种时间维度——艺术家自身的劳动时间。刺绣作为一种极为缓慢的手工劳作，使这些图像成为时间被一点点缝入物质中的记录。与此同时，散落在金属格栅上的衣物则为整个景观增添了另一层微妙的人类痕迹：它们离开身体，成为未来考古遗址中的个人遗物，使观众在这个看似无人存在的空间中，依然能够感受到某种隐约来自过去的人类活动。在钢架之间，另一种时间正在悄悄发生。
In the South Gallery at White Cube, the spatial environment formed by several of Hosnedlová’s installations appears almost like a stratum from such an as-yet-unnamed future geology. Here, artificial structures are gradually overtaken by organic growth, while traces of human activity slowly deform over time, becoming a landscape of ruins that feels at once familiar and strangely unfamiliar. Upon entering this gallery, the scale and visual structure of the space shift abruptly. A platform constructed from steel grating occupies the center of the room. Visitors walk along these metal grids, moving across the slightly elevated structure while looking down at the space below or surveying the surrounding landscape. The cold, geometric rigidity of the metal framework contrasts sharply with the piles of fallen leaves gathered beneath it, making the setting feel at once like a temporary industrial scaffold and an unfinished archaeological excavation site. The entire space takes on an atmosphere suspended somewhere between laboratory and ruin. At the same time, several slender metal columns rise from the floor, each supporting a small, embroidered work. Most of these images focus on fragments of the human body: a spine revealed as damp hair is pushed aside, fingers wrapped in thread, hands writing on the surface of stone, and teeth encased in grillz. Echoing the embroidered works embedded within stone structures in the previous gallery, these images are rendered with extraordinary precision, their stitches tracing the textures of skin, strands of hair, and the subtle gestures of the body. Within Hosnedlová’s installation system, these seemingly fleeting bodily actions and fragments point toward another temporal dimension: the artist’s own labor time. Embroidery, as an intensely slow form of handwork, turns these images into records of time gradually stitched into material. Meanwhile, garments scattered across the metal grating introduce another delicate trace of human presence within the landscape. Detached from the body, they resemble personal relics in a future archaeological site, allowing viewers to sense faint echoes of human activity within what otherwise appears to be an uninhabited environment. Between the steel frames, another form of time is quietly unfolding.
展览现场 Exhibition View
平台中央分布着数块巨大而不规则的形体。它们既像被时间侵蚀的巨型朽木，又像经过漫长地壳运动后暴露出来的岩石遗骸。粗糙的表面覆盖着菌类与微生物生长的痕迹，几朵灵芝从裂隙中缓慢伸出，仿佛从石质躯体内部萌发出的器官。这些形体同时携带着地质遗迹的沉重感与有机生命的活力，使它们看起来像是一种介于矿物、植物与生物体之间的混合存在。在这些“遗骸”周围，褐色的落叶像森林地表的腐殖层一般铺展开来，缓慢覆盖整个空间，暗示着一种持续进行的分解与再生过程。
At the center of the platform lie several massive, irregular forms. They resemble both giant pieces of decayed timber eroded by time and the exposed remnants of rock revealed after long geological shifts. Their rough surfaces bear traces of fungal and microbial growth, while several Reishi mushrooms slowly emerge from the cracks, as if sprouting like organs from within a stony body. These forms carry at once the weight of geological remnants and the vitality of organic life, appearing as hybrid entities somewhere between mineral, plant, and organism. Around these “remains,” brown fallen leaves spread out like the humus layer of a forest floor, gradually covering the space and suggesting an ongoing process of decomposition and regeneration.
与周围那些仿佛沉睡已久的人造与自然物质相比，菌类的生长显得格外鲜活——它们并不是装饰性的元素，而更像是一种正在发生的时间痕迹。正如人类学家Anna Tsing在《末日松茸》中所谈到的，某些生命形式恰恰是从废墟之中生长出来的；松茸只会出现在被人类破坏过的森林，而不会生长在完整稳定的生态系统之中。生态世界始终由多种时间尺度共同构成——资本主义的快速扩张、森林缓慢的再生，以及真菌网络隐秘而漫长的生长，在同一空间中交叠。
Hosnedlová的装置同样呈现出这种多重时间结构：工业钢架象征人类制造的时间，而脚下的落叶与菌类则指向一种更为缓慢的生态时间。悬挂在金属立柱上的刺绣图像也与下方正在缓慢腐解的落叶层以及持续生长的真菌之间形成一种奇特的关系：人类身体、工业结构与非人生命在同一空间中被并置，使整个装置呈现出一种跨物种的生态图景。正如Donna Haraway所描述的more-than-human world，Hosnedlová在这里构建的并不是一个以人类为中心的场景，而是一种由人类与非人生命共同构成的环境。
Compared with the surrounding artificial and natural materials that seem to have long fallen into dormancy, the growth of the fungi appears strikingly alive. They are not decorative elements, but rather traces of time actively unfolding. As anthropologist Anna Tsing writes in The Mushroom at the End of the World, certain forms of life emerge precisely from ruins. Matsutake mushrooms grow only in forests that have been disturbed by human activity; they do not appear within stable, intact ecosystems. The ecological world is always composed of multiple temporal scales: the rapid expansion of capitalism, the slow regeneration of forests, and the long, hidden growth of fungal networks overlapping within the same space.
Hosnedlová’s installation similarly reveals this layered temporality. The industrial steel framework suggests the time of human manufacture, while the fallen leaves and fungi beneath it point toward a slower ecological time. The embroidered images suspended on the metal columns form an unusual relationship with the decomposing layer of leaves below and the fungi that continue to grow among them. Human bodies, industrial structures, and nonhuman life are placed side by side within the same space, giving the entire installation the character of a cross-species ecological landscape. In the sense described by Donna Haraway’s concept of the more-than-human world, Hosnedlová does not construct a scene centered on humanity alone, but rather an environment shaped collectively by human and nonhuman forms of life.
展览现场 Exhibition View
在展厅四周，几件巨大的灰白色浮雕式装置被固定在墙前的金属板上。它们的形态介于骨骼、甲壳与地质岩层之间，粗糙而起伏的表面仿佛长期风化侵蚀后留下的痕迹，像某种早已灭绝的巨大生物遗留下来的残骸。装置边缘延伸出半透明的红色或黄色“牙齿”状突起，使原本沉重的结构带上一种微妙的未来科幻感。它们既像某种生物体的防御结构，又像尚未完全结晶的矿物形态，使这些装置始终停留在矿物与生物之间的暧昧状态。
在这些“骨骼”结构内部，艺术家同样嵌入了细致的刺绣图像。透过不规则的开口，可以看到人体的局部——尝试触碰、正在绘画、按下火机的手指。与外部粗糙的石质表面形成强烈对比，这些刺绣图像显得异常精细而脆弱，仿佛是被封存在化石内部的一段柔软感伤的记忆碎片。人类身体的痕迹在这里被置于一种类似考古标本的位置：既像是遗留在地层中的证据，也像是一段尚未被完全解读的历史。在视觉结构上，这些墙面装置围绕着整个空间形成一种环形结构，使展厅看起来像一处被巨大遗骸包围的考古现场。中央的平台与地面上的“岩石”遗迹仿佛构成地层的核心，而墙面上的骨骼则像从地层中被暴露出来的断面。通过这种空间结构，Hosnedlová将人类身体、地质物质与未来遗迹并置在同一视觉体系之中，使整个展厅呈现出一种介于自然历史博物馆与未来考古现场之间的氛围。
Along the perimeter of the gallery, several large grey-white relief-like installations are mounted on metal plates fixed to the walls. Their forms lie somewhere between skeletons, shells, and geological strata. Their rough, undulating surfaces resemble the traces left by long processes of weathering and erosion, like the remains of some enormous organism that has long since gone extinct. From their edges extend translucent red or yellow protrusions resembling teeth, lending the otherwise heavy structures a subtle sense of speculative futurity. They appear at once like defensive structures of an organism and like mineral forms that have not yet fully crystallized, leaving the installations suspended in an ambiguous state between mineral and life.
Within these skeletal structures, the artist has similarly embedded delicate embroidered images. Through the irregular openings, fragments of the human body come into view—hands trying to touch, hands engaged in drawing, fingers pressing down on a lighter. In stark contrast to the rough, stone-like exterior surfaces, these embroidered images appear exceptionally delicate and fragile, like soft, melancholic fragments of memory sealed within a fossil. Traces of the human body are positioned here almost like archaeological specimens: they resemble both evidence preserved within geological strata and pieces of history that have yet to be fully interpreted. Visually, these wall-mounted installations form a circular arrangement around the entire space, making the gallery resemble an archaeological site surrounded by enormous remains. The central platform and the “rock” relics scattered across the floor seem to form the core of a geological layer, while the skeletal forms on the walls appear like cross-sections exposed from within that stratum. Through this spatial structure, Hosnedlová places the human body, geological matter, and future relics within the same visual system. The entire gallery thus takes on an atmosphere suspended somewhere between a natural history museum and a site of speculative future archaeology.
Klára Hosnedlová，Untitled (from the series embrace), 2025
Klára Hosnedlová，Untitled (from the series embrace), 2025
Klára Hosnedlová，Untitled (from the series embrace), 2025
在Klára Hosnedlová所编织的Echo的构想中，时间并不是一条向前推进的直线，而更像是在不同物质之间不断回荡的回声。不同形态和不同生命阶段的物质并置在同一场景之中，使时间的尺度被重新拆解。在这里，材料、图像与空间共同构成了一种关于时间的隐喻，人类的技术、身体与行为痕迹被嵌入其中，像是未来某个时代的考古证据。当观众在这些结构之间行走时，他们所面对的不仅是一组装置作品，而更像是一个尚未完成的地层——一个关于人类存在、生态循环与物质记忆的时间剖面。或许正是在这种意义上，Echo不仅指向声音的回响，也指向时间本身：那些已经发生的行为、被遗弃的物质以及正在生长的生命形式，都会在未来某个尚未到来的时刻再次被听见。
In Klára Hosnedlová’s conception of Echo, time does not unfold as a line moving steadily forward, but rather as a resonance that reverberates among different materials. By placing substances of different forms and stages of life within the same scene, the scale of time is broken apart and reconfigured. Here, materials, images, and spatial structures together form a metaphor for temporality, within which human technologies, bodies, and traces of action are embedded like archaeological evidence awaiting discovery in some future age. As viewers move through these structures, what they encounter is not merely a series of installations, but something closer to an unfinished stratum—a cross-section of time that reflects human existence, ecological cycles, and the memory of matter. In this sense, Echo refers not only to the reverberation of sound, but also to time itself: actions that have already taken place, materials that have been discarded, and life forms still in the process of growing may all be heard again at some moment in the yet-unarrived future.