Trashy, ritualistic and symbolistic conceptual art piece based on a poem “Gothica” by Elliotté P. Joel, follows a story of three acquaintances from past life that meet in Emócia bar, the second circle of hell – Lust. They keep supporting each other on their unique journeys of healing, embracing the human experience, dealing with loss, and self-discovery, in a rather unconventional way.
A reincarnated medieval Queen (Miroslava Kočvarová) still grieves for her beloved servant who died of plague during the gothic period and was buried into a mass grave (now the land of the bar.) Abomination (Danielle Rain Palkovič) – the son of the servant and Queen, struggles to connect to himself and wants to discover the purpose of his return to Earth.
The Witch (Nina Zborovančíková) encourages them to reimagine their identity and to face past-life traumas. The three of them perform a symbolic ritual full of lavish drinking, speaking to the soil, frenetic casting, and subconscious shadow work, during which all of them break down multiple times in “Qliphothic seizures”
In the end of the poem, the trio acknowledges the present – 2024 – and decides to move forward despite the presence of uncertainty and grief.
The sequence of events is misplaced and continuously interrupted by another, accompanied by eerie and unmelodic music, whilst the poem is recited. The short conceptional piece speaks of healing, letting go and self-discovery as it often is – painful, chaotic, uncanny, and even seemingly on the edge of sanity. The past-life experiences may or may not be a deliberate interpretation – they can also be traumas of the past that feel rather detached and foreign to us in the present.
The project is part of the subthemes Re-imagining identity through poetry, Healing Narratives - Poetry, Mental Health and Collective Trauma.
Author
Miroslava Kočvarová
Miroslava Kočvarová (*2002, Martin, Slovakia) is a poet, painter and sculptor, mostly known by her pen name Elliotté P. Joel. In 2023, she founded Absence of Meaning Literary Society in Žilina and became an Editor-in-chief at Estetično Online Magazine for young experimental literature, arts and philosophy. She has graduated Slovak-English Economic Studies and is currently studying Mediamatics and Cultural heritage at University of Žilina. Her second poetry collection Seek the Upside Eyes, There are Two. (2023) won Page Turner Book Awards 2023 in Poetry subcategory. After completing Yale University course of Psychology, she wrote a paper on Sense of Belonging in ASD Persons as a SUD Prevention Mehod (2024). She is also an author of Wounded Poems (2022), Meaningless Generation of Poets (2023) and appears in Muse Rental anthology (2023).
