Verbum naturae

Verbum naturae ("The Word of Nature" in Latin) by artist Mila Kotka presents a unique visual language she calls bio-hieroglyphs, created from natural elements like leaves, stones, and plants during her travels around the world. Having no fixed meanings, they focus on personal feelings and inner echoes. Captured through photos, videos, and VR just before they decay and return to nature, the artworks portray life's cycle: birth, existence (being a form of art), and dissolution. Mila Kotka blends nature with technology, ethics, aesthetics, spiritual ideas, and science, seeking balance between extremes and captures this fragile harmony in the form of bio-hieroglyphs. These images emerge a moment before being dismantled and returned to nature. Then they enter the digital transformation, continuing their existence as ghostly memories of the places they once appeared in. "I create bio-hieroglyphs in the 'wild studio'—the natural environments of the most beautiful and untamed places in the world. I use small elements of endemic flora and biodiversity to convey nature's secrets through hybrid media",—the artist says. The artist combines several art forms: ephemeral installations, their digital versions, as well as physical artworks. She creates a hybrid image where different media merge, making it hard to discern whether it's living plants, a drawing, a photograph, or even generative art altogether. The editor and designer Alexey Murashko has created the book concept based on the idea of entropy, inevitable erosion. Throughout the book, the bio-hieroglyphs are followed by their silver shadows—or rather monochrome imprints, gradually fading away up to the point of complete disappearance by the end of the book. Originally, each bio-hieroglyph was accompanied by the description, composed by the artist. Curated by Murashko, these descriptions are hidden and only appear as a sequence of words, transforming into visual poetry. These riddles now force the viewer to fall under their spell, grasp the meaning of corresponding visual symbol by the mood created by singular words. Another interactive instrument offered by the designer is an interactive cryptic map of the artist's travels. Only attentive viewers will notice a hint on how to use the map, and may even find a symbol created near them. Verbum Naturae book has yet another dimension, literally not visible by the eye. In an attempt to print vivid colors and deep velvet blacks on a non-gloss paper, the production team substituted ordinary publishing ink with neon colors. As a side effect, the book pages now glow in the UV light, leaving the viewer with an almost extraterrestrial sensation. Elena Siamionava, art journalist and TAMAKA's editor-in-chief, is the author of the introductory text to the book, unravelling the layers of meaning of the natural conlang created by Mila Kotka. This book on bio-art practice helps the readers to turn natural compositions into a deep and personal language that nature speaks to us. Artist: Mila Kotka Mila Kotka is an artist, cultural activist, and producer specializing in Brazilian culture research. A representative of bio-art, she is the creator of her unique artistic method and style "bio-hieroglyphs"—ephemeral compositions made from endemic natural elements of specific biomes, arranged into abstract symbolic structures. Mila Kotka's work is devoted to themes of harmony, balance, self-awareness, geocentrism, animism, and ritual as a cultural form. In her artistic practice, she turns to neuroaesthetics and semiotics within artistic research, as well as philosophical and cultural concepts of human-nature interaction, including ecological philosophy and posthumanist approaches. Text by: Elena Siamionava Editor-in-chief and co-founder of TAMAKA Publishing. Based in Vilnius, she has previously contributed to Mastactva magazine as an art journalist and authored exhibition texts for contemporary artists since 2016. A graduate of photography school and literary studies program, she has created written content across a wide range of contexts—from UNICEF human stories to digital strategy for international brands.