Martin Toloku\u2019s artistic practice has developed over the years from carving, to installation, performance, and video. Central to his work is an engagement with processes of decay, which he approaches as a way of reading the histories embedded in organic and man-made materials. Focusing on dead or decaying wood and found objects in their environments, his works operate as a form of archival inquiry into moments that have become obscured over time. <\/p>\n
Martin Toloku is interested in deterioration not as an endpoint, but as a process through which material and environmental conditions become legible. Decay reveals the temporal, spatial, and historical layers embedded in objects, allowing them to be understood as traces of their surroundings. <\/p>\n
At times, his practice involves collaboration with non-human organisms, specifically termites, within studio-based settings that reflect on shared environments between human and other forms of life. These encounters extend his investigation into cohabitation, transformation, and the permeability of material boundaries. <\/p>\n
Across his work, Martin Toloku explores how memory and history are stored in objects and environments, treating them as evidence of time and lived experience. This inquiry informs a broader reflection on life and death, approached through both material and embodied perspectives. In his performance practice, he employs his own body as a material object to confront and challenge the mortality of all living beings, as well as his own phobia of death. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","categories":[],"class_list":["post-49687","kb_artist","type-kb_artist","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"article_image":49684,"article_image_bu_de":"Martin Toloku, Wounded Soul, 2025, Performance, Marina Abramovi\u0107 Institute in Kollaboration mit dem Museum Moyland, Foto: Lex Hulscher","article_image_bu_en":"Martin Toloku, Wounded Soul, 2025, Performance, Marina Abramovi\u0107 Institute in collaboration with Museum Moyland, photo: Lex Hulscher","datum_suche":"2026-02-15 00:00:00"},"yoast_head":"\n