UNIVERSITY OF PŘEDLICE

Group exhibition and publication

Publisher: Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyne in Usti nad Labem

2012

Book Editor, Project Curator: Michal Koleček 

The publication and exhibition were focused especially on the area of art and design, which is presented (and serving) in the public space, which can help to open unnaturally closed communities in suburban locality Usti nad Labem - Predlice. Such kind of art and design can immediate vicinity of nonfunctional units – working with the phenomenon of "neighborhood". The goal of this publication is to create an exceptional, communicative platform with a strong social dimension directly interconnecting frames of contemporary arts and social spheres, and contributing to erosion of the "desolidarization" processes. 

Předlice, suburb of the city of Ústí nad Labem, northern Bohemia, wedged between the motorway linking the Czech Republic with Germany, former lignite scrap mine gradually transforming into a landscape covered by a lake and abandoned industrial compounds, has become over the last two decades a unique source of inspiration for a large group of artists. Creative projects that have been carried out there under the patronage of the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University since the 1990s, have been focused on specific features of the local environment, including most notably the long-term deprivation felt by its population as a result of social exclusion, with its sequels of apathy and aggressiveness which – as two extremes of the same problem – evolve towards an ever more acute sense of alienation from the majority population, and the emergence of a hardly permeable communication barrier. Given the causalities outlined above, it is evident that the work of curators and artists aspiring to engage in a patient and thoughtful reflection of this environment, must decidedly start from intense communication involving its initiators, local inhabitants, local administration, educational institutions, social organizations and special-interest groups. Past and present, geographic and urbanistic potential, industrial and post-industrial character, former and current social status, prosperity and decline of this particular district have been transformed into pulsating entities influencing shifts of creative energies of the various artists participating in the project.

While the majority population nowadays tends to regard Předlice as a non-area, a territory extracted from the natural functioning of the urban entity as a whole, the people inhabiting this area themselves have been inclined to accepting this bracketing, and have in their largely adopted an intuitively defensive attitude towards outside interventions. Only through concentrated collective action, often mediated by representatives from institutions long established within the locality, have some of the projects succeeded in building up an ambience receptive to artistic as well as broader social interactivity and participation.

In fact, viewed from a certain angle, the University of Předlice project as a whole can be interpreted as a contribution to the debate on the possibilities and limitations of artistic work at the periphery, outside the centres of political, economic and cultural dominance. People´s identification with the sites of their own existence and re-interpretation of the latter´s omitted subjectivity can become instrumental in defence against the mindless enforcement of globalizing processes and furtive usurpation of public space enacted by the political establishment and state bureaucratic machine. An array of projects from these student undertakings was selected by curators for presentation in an eponymous exhibition at the National Gallery in Prague. The building of a common space for discovery and experience has eventually become the keynote for all participants in the University of Předlice project. The site´s ambivalent atmosphere, the wishes and aspirations of its inhabitants, and the artists´ pursuit of openness coupled with their creative potential, have yielded a cornucopia of preliminary designs, sketches, studies, and art works. Beyond the indisputable value of these, however, the true wealth underlying this project resides in the import of natural sharing of a specific place, of meetings between people coming from diverse sections of the social spectrum.

Diverse forms of collaborative and participative interventions have activated broad strata of the inhabitants, as well as a comparatively heterogeneous group of artists, scholars, and students. Their attitudes, initially disparate, have gradually come to converge and gain substance as a result of mutual impact, eventually joining together in a stream which has torn down stale stereotypes and sparked off an aspiration to mutual understanding.

In the course of the University of Předlice project, the collective work mode, including various forms of group authorship and anonymous interventions, has proven to be an inspiring transformational element, not just from the viewpoint of the artists themselves – students and teachers of the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University -, who have set up a number of interdisciplinary creative teams. Moreover, and most importantly, it has played a truly key role in particular in the complex process of establishing mutual trust and communication with the inhabitants of Předlice. Their state of exclusion has doubtless had a devastating effect on the life of this community as regards both social and economic aspects, though what should be regarded here as the area spawning the direst frustration is that of the process of identification and search for a relevant position in society. While the majority population nowadays tends to regard Předlice as a non-area, a territory extracted from the natural functioning of the urban entity as a whole, the people inhabiting this area themselves have been inclined to accepting this bracketing, and have in their largely adopted an intuitively defensive attitude towards outside interventions. Only through concentrated collective action, often mediated by representatives from institutions long established within the locality, have some of the projects succeeded in building up an ambience receptive to artistic as well as broader social interactivity and participation.

Among the various aspects of approach to a milieu which is as complex as is doubtless present at Předlice, one should definitely point out a dominant factor: namely, the impact of regionalism in its positive manifestations. In fact, viewed from a certain angle, the University of Předlice project as a whole can be interpreted as a contribution to the debate on the possibilities and limitations of artistic work at the periphery, outside the centres of political, economic and cultural dominance. People´s identification with the sites of their own existence and re-interpretation of the latter´s omitted subjectivity can become instrumental in defence against the mindless enforcement of globalizing processes and furtive usurpation of public space enacted by the political establishment and state bureaucratic machine.