Nymph, 2021-2024 by Tereza Červeňová

The conceptual foundation of the project draws inspiration from Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, a sprawling visual atlas mapping the transmission of symbolic imagery across cultures and epochs. Within this vast constellation, Červeňová was struck by a singular image in Panel 46, the so-called "Nymph Panel": a photograph of a woman from Settignano, captured mid-step on a street, with workmen behind her — a rare original photograph taken not from reproductions, but by Warburg himself. 

Its immediacy and spontaneity resonated deeply, offering a moment of intersection between the documentary and the poetic, and became a catalyst for her own work.

Responding to this image, Červeňová centers her project on the female figure, often inserting herself into the frame or collaborating with female architects present during the construction. Moving through the site, sometimes shedding the constraints of her protective gear, she navigates not only the changing architecture but also the layered histories and unspoken dynamics embedded in the space. Her photographic language, which merges stillness with gesture, becomes a medium of transformation itself, echoing the shifting materiality of the building.

The resulting series, both intimate and architectural, reveals Červeňová’s evolving relationship with the Institute. Her presence within the images — sometimes deliberate, sometimes incidental — foregrounds questions of visibility and belonging, safety and vulnerability. As she maps her body into the institution’s spaces, the work becomes a meditation on what it means for women to take up space (physically, historically, and metaphorically) within traditionally male-dominated environments of knowledge, power, and architecture.

Through this visual narrative, Nymph not only documents a major moment in the Warburg Institute’s architectural life but also interrogates the ephemeral tensions between presence and absence, structure and softness, archival permanence and embodied experience. It is both a record and a reimagining. A portrait of an institution in flux, and of an artist finding form within it.

The conceptual foundation of the project draws inspiration from Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne, a sprawling visual atlas mapping the transmission of symbolic imagery across cultures and epochs. Within this vast constellation, Červeňová was struck by a singular image in Panel 46, the so-called "Nymph Panel": a photograph of a woman from Settignano, captured mid-step on a street, with workmen behind her — a rare original photograph taken not from reproductions, but by Warburg himself. Its immediacy and spontaneity resonated deeply, offering a moment of intersection between the documentary and the poetic, and became a catalyst for her own work.Responding to this image, Červeňová centers her project on the female figure, often inserting herself into the frame or collaborating with female architects present during the construction. Moving through the site, sometimes shedding the constraints of her protective gear, she navigates not only the changing architecture but also the layered histories and unspoken dynamics embedded in the space. Her photographic language, which merges stillness with gesture, becomes a medium of transformation itself, echoing the shifting materiality of the building.The resulting series, both intimate and architectural, reveals Červeňová’s evolving relationship with the Institute. Her presence within the images — sometimes deliberate, sometimes incidental — foregrounds questions of visibility and belonging, safety and vulnerability. As she maps her body into the institution’s spaces, the work becomes a meditation on what it means for women to take up space (physically, historically, and metaphorically) within traditionally male-dominated environments of knowledge, power, and architecture.Through this visual narrative, Nymph not only documents a major moment in the Warburg Institute’s architectural life but also interrogates the ephemeral tensions between presence and absence, structure and softness, archival permanence and embodied experience. It is both a record and a reimagining. A portrait of an institution in flux, and of an artist finding form within it.

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