Eliška SKY’s ‘Parasites’: Human sculptures and global goals

Eliška SKY is not just a photographer or an artist. She is a catalyst. Hers is the business of bringing about a head-on collision between what is real and the surreal. The outcome leaves us with a sense of impact, yes, but then there is also a slow trickle of realisation… discovering what she is really telling us. In her latest series, Parasites, it’s a sensation not unlike feeling an unexpected raindrop rolling down your cheek. And then discovering that it is blood.

“I wanted to play with symmetry,’” she says, matter-of-factly. “For a long time, I had this idea of a mesh of people together and creating a structure.” However, she hadn’t found a concept through which to explore this complex visual challenge. That is, until she began to work with Canon’s Young People Programme in her role as a Canon Ambassador. “I was teaching a workshop at Chelsea College of Art and we were working to themes from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” she explains. “That’s where it sparked – to join these two ideas.” Eliška had never previously encountered the 17 goals – an interconnecting network of strategies which urgently call for global action on poverty, inequality and education, as well as environmental threats to land and oceans. But the more she learnt, the more this idea of human structures grew in her mind.

People are always key to Eliška’s work, and she is unafraid to present humans in ways that are unconventional and occasionally discomforting. In her shock at the scale of the work needed, as presented by the UN SDGs, she questioned both the role of humans in creating the problems of the world and in solving them. “I asked, ‘are we parasites of the earth?’ and that’s why the shapes remind me of a beetle or a parasite.” However, like the goals do not point the finger of blame, but signpost the direction of positive travel, Eliška wanted to use her work to do the same. “It was important to me to show how we have the power to make a difference and to make a change.”

The first three studies in this body of work (a description that has never been more appropriate), are due to be exhibited at the Global Good Awards in London. They explore the three SDGs which resonated most with Eliška – Affordable and clean energy (7), Reduced inequalities (10) and Life on land (15). Every image is painstakingly designed and choreographed, resulting in a multi-layered emotional and intellectual experience for the viewer. Costumes and props were made by hand, both by Eliška herself and the shoot stylists, as well as student designers from Central Saint Martins, who were given an unusual brief. “I asked the students to use upcycling to create the whole collection. So, all the pieces I think are interesting and useful.” Each shoot took place in London’s Epping Forest (“I wanted somewhere we could celebrate the beautiful nature around us”), where she, the stylists and a choreographer turned the dancers – for the shapes Eliška envisaged could only have been performed by professionals – into dramatic, powerful forces.

“This summer, it was so hot that there were fires all around, even in Europe,” recalls Eliška. “And at the location for the shoot you can see there had been some fires too. You can see the dead trees behind the dancers.” Putting the dancers in the role of deadly fire tells a story that is the opposite to their portrayal of wind as a clean energy choice. It makes much creative sense to pit the human environmental dichotomy of cause and solution against each other in this fashion. It opens a conversation that acknowledges responsibility, hope and action in equal measures.

The series title, Parasites, becomes crystal clear in the images around ‘reduced inequalities’, where the stylistic play of lumps and bulges on the dancers marries with the symmetrical structure they create, a human installation piece which mimics the exoskeleton of an infesting insect. There is an unnerving sense of danger and impossibility in the shapes the dancers create throughout the series, but also fascination. Because we know that, inherently, they are human, yet we believe that they are doing something that most of us cannot do. However, humans do largely share some capacity for flexibility – and it is this that is the final layer of message from Eliška. “It’s a stretch, but we have the power. We can make changes in our lives and be more thoughtful about how to not harm, how to support sustainability, how to support causes like education. I want people look at it and think and be more mindful about their actions.”

Discover more about Eliška SKY and her work in her Ambassador profile.