Never Ground

^{Natália Trejbalová, Never Ground, Full HD video, color, sound, 17 min., 2025. Courtesy of the artist. Produced thanks to the support of the Italian Council (2024).}

Never Ground by Natália Trejbalová is a video work that draws inspiration from science fiction narratives concerning subterranean realms and recent scientific advancements that establish a link between speleological exploration and space exploration.

The video is presented as a continuous loop, portraying a descent and ascent through the depths of a celestial body. It delineates a speculative spatiotemporal journey between Earth and the subsurface networks of an extraterrestrial terrain.
In Never Ground, authentic ecosystems are seamlessly integrated with meticulously constructed studio settings, evoking the special effects techniques employed in pre-digital science fiction cinema—such as the use of miniatures and props.

The work engages with the structural framework of Jules Verne’s seminal novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), wherein the protagonists traverse the Earth’s interior, entering through an Icelandic volcano and emerging from Stromboli. This nineteenth-century literary paradigm anticipates the technological advancements that would later facilitate the interconnection of distant terrestrial locations.

^{Natália Trejbalová, Never Ground, Full HD video, color, sound, 17 min., 2025. Courtesy of the artist. Produced thanks to the support of the Italian Council (2024).}

Subterranean formations—particularly lava tubes identified on the Moon and Mars—have become focal points of contemporary scientific inquiry, as they are hypothesized to constitute the most viable environments for sustaining future human habitation beyond Earth. Simultaneously, newly discovered terrestrial cave systems host extremophilic organisms that have adapted to such highly specialized ecological conditions that they offer profound insights into potential extraterrestrial life forms.

Addressing the theme of the underground also entails engaging with a series of critical contemporary issues. The lithosphere beneath our feet sustains the majority of terrestrial fauna while also preserving the material vestiges of ancient human civilizations. The act of excavation grants access to temporal strata that extend into the deep time, a phenomenon that is particularly evident in resource extraction processes, such as mining and hydrocarbon exploitation, which underpin the continuity of the global capitalist system. Nevertheless, human perception is predominantly surface-oriented, often conceptualizing the planet as an expansive infinite plane. As a matter of fact Earth is a sphere perforated with cavities and interlinked networks that bridge the visible and the conceal, the surface and the subterranean.

The artist challenges the limits of our perception and imagination, using science fiction as a tool to explore what may still lie hidden beneath the planet’s surface—where the only spaces yet to be colonized by humankind are underground.

Never Ground is a continuation of a series of video works initiated in 2020, centered on the perception of our planet as a physical entity in a state of continuous transformation and evolution. The science fiction dimension, which has historically often preceded technological and scientific discoveries, serves for Natália Trejbalová as a means of investigating contemporary realities.

The project also encompasses the creation of a book, comprising a curated assemblage of transhistorical perspectives—incorporating historical accounts, science fiction narratives, and literary texts. This publication will serve as a pedagogical resource for workshops and seminars. Furthermore, the initiative envisions the establishment of an international academic campus, fostering collaboration between secondary school students and researchers across diverse fields, with the objective of rendering the themes explored in the video accessible to a broader audience.

^{Natália Trejbalová, Never Ground, Full HD video, color, sound, 17 min., 2025. Courtesy of the artist. Produced thanks to the support of the Italian Council (2024).}

Natália Trejbalová (*1989, Slovakia) is a visual artist based in Milan, Italy, whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses film, sculpture, and drawing. Her moving image works are intricately linked to her sculptural practice, which serves as a foundational medium for the construction of cinematic imagery. Drawing inspiration from contemporary scientific research as well as the speculative realms of science fiction, Trejbalová’s work explores the political potential of world-building as a means of reshaping our understanding of the more-than-human ecosystem to which we belong. She participated in various solo and group exhibitions and her films were screened in different institutions and spaces such as Matadero, Palais de Tokyo, MUDAM Luxembourg, Power Station of Arts in Shanghai, OGR Torino, Fotomuseum Winterthur, La Quadriennale di Roma, Gossamer Fog, Palazzo Grassi, L’Esprit Nouveau, Fondazione Pini, Regional Art Gallery Liberec and others.
Trejbalová was also artist in residence at Schafhof – Europaisches Kunstlerhaus Oberbayern; Kunststiftung Baden-Wurttemberg; AIR Futura Prague and others.

The project is supported by the Italian Council program (2024)

Never Ground
by Natália Trejbalová

A Video Sound Art Production
Curated by Laura Lamonea

The project is supported by the
Italian Council program (2024)
promoted by the
Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

INTERNATIONALS EVENTS

Personal Exhibition
Never Ground
Bratislava City Gallery – Pálffy Palace
Bratislava, Slovakia
Curated by Lýdia Pribišová
March 12 – September 21, 2025

Workshop
Exploring the Narrative Possibilities of Science
Fiction for Research in the Arts
Hasselt University – Faculty of Architecture
Hasselt, Belgium
March 26, 2025

Exhibition and Public Program
XV Ed. Video Sound Art Festival 2025
Milan, Italy
Curated by Laura Lamonea
November 2025

Upcoming Dates (TBA)
SACO Cultural Corporation
The Institute for Postnatural Studies

The artwork will become part of the collection of Museion (Bolzano, Italy).