Lecture at Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam

ARTIST TALK WITH LUCIA NIMCOVA & DAVID PETRAS (NOHAMI)

THURS 5 MARCH 2026, 17.00

HOSTED BY TXT and IMAGE&LANGUAGE

AT IMAGE&LANGUAGE, -1 floor, GERRIT RIETVELD ACADEMY, AMSTERDAM

Since 2020 visual artist Lucia Nimcova and sound artist David Petras have been studying the "borderlines" of Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania, working closely with rural communities in The Carpathian Mountains. When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Nohami.com was founded as a way of sustaining the ongoing work of building an audio visual archive of objects, sounds, images, stories and songs. As a case study of European history and fights for freedom, Nohami's process has become a social, artistic, anthropological, sociological, and musical experiment shaped by a very specific context. The craft-based traditions in these places are active, political, and resilient heritage, responding in the present to social changes, marginalisation and patriarchal forces.

During this talk, Lucia and David share their wider practice, working on exhibitions, performances, albums, books and through a shopfront in the Marolles, Brussels.

But the work does not belong only to them. Their collaborators continue their practices-some of them fourth-generation wool workers-while they sing, share survival humor, and pass on songs and oral stories.

These are stewarded by the Nohami.com living archive, to be carried into the future, beyond the results Lucia and David produce as artists.

Text: Clare Butche