Misa S.

Míša Š. (they/he) is an emerging artist, craftsperson, and arts educator studying at the University of Calgary, currently based on Treaty 7 land but originally from Czechia. Míša’s primary mediums are fibre arts, printmaking, and analog photography, though anything employing a hands-on mixed media approach lies within their interest. The scope of their art practice focuses primarily on the Disabled experience, matrilineal relationships, and generational trauma – whether that be in regard to biological and/or found family. Míša strives to make works which question what we view as Fine Art, and to give voice to those who have been ‘Othered’.

Zdeněk Koubek, 2024

The book Zdeněk Koubek memorializes the Czech transgender athlete of the same name, who underwent gender-affirming care and sex reassignment surgery in the 1930s. This work has a soft, quilted feel, consisting of every surviving photograph or newspaper clipping of this person organized chronologically, as if a family photo album reflecting on a relative.

• In this piece, cyanotype is used for image transfer, referencing the historic photographic practices of the time. The many steps it takes to transfer images using cyanotype mimics the arduous archival collections process, where surviving fragmented records are ones which were hidden away and partially destroyed during decades of violent suppression. The use of cyanotype allowed the images to be embedded into the fabric, in the same way that these individuals are embedded into Czech and Slovak history no matter how hard their existence has been attempted to be erased.

A Line of Angry Women, 2025

In this piece, an old family photo of my mother breastfeeding my oldest sister is printed onto a thrifted lace doily, juxtaposing the domesticity of care with harsh language about generational trauma. The women in my family have passed down a strong tradition in the fibre arts, as well as a lineage of abuse. For this reason, I find that textile mediums are well-suited to addressing topics of matrilineal trauma.

This Grief, 2025

In this piece, I recontextualize archival photos of the women in my family to speak on matrilineal trauma and abuse passed down from generation to generation. Works such as this one come from a place of reckoning with an inheritance of immense pain, while holding vast amounts of empathy for the women who came before me.