Language accessibility: English
Free entrance

Participating: Kryštof Hanzlík (Snížit kultuře práh), Anna Hořejší (Budějovice 2028) Olivera Těsnohlídková (Masarykova univerzita), Barbora Kleinhamplová (Institut úzkosti), Zai Xu (SVĚTOVA 1)

The world of art, both institutionalized and community-driven, is the scene of many experiments and more or less successful attempts to open up – both physically and symbolically. Many argue that contemporary art is elitist and demands cultural and social capital from its viewers and creators, which many people lack for reasons beyond their control. The self-critical turn that artists, curators, cultural workers, museums, and galleries are undergoing is manifested in a desire for authentic inclusion – that is, the inclusion of the widest possible range of opinions, life experiences, and perspectives in the process of art-making and its presentation and mediation. Where do these efforts stand in the Czech language space in 2024, and what can the different initiatives learn or unlearn from each other? As part of the third edition of the Biennale Matter of Art, a public discussion seminar will be held for the general and professional public, which aims to introduce some of these initiatives and, through the format of a lively discussion, critically situate them in the broader European context.

The aim of the meeting is to present the different ways in which educators, artists, curators, cultural organizers, and others are approaching the engagement of creators and audiences who, for a variety of reasons, have difficulty accessing culture – and how artists and institutions can work to change this.

The discussion will take place in a “world café” format, meaning several smaller discussion groups of 8–10 chairs organized around one table. The discussion at a particular table is always thematically led by a selected guest, but the audience is actively involved in the discussion. Admission to the event is free of charge.

After studying sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University, Hanzlík worked at the Department of Drug Policy of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, where he was involved in the development of a methodology of needs analysis for the purpose of planning networks of addiction services. He subsequently used this experience to prepare analyses for the regional governments of the Czech Republic, mostly in cooperation with the Department of Addictology of the First Faculty of Medicine of Charles University in Prague, where he is also starting his doctoral studies in addictology this year. For the last two years he has been working for the Salvation Army as a field worker in the homelessness prevention service and also in the night field program implemented within the framework of winter humanitarian measures for homeless people in Prague. During that time, he began participating in the activities of the platform Snížit kultuře práh, aimed at increasing the accessibility of culture for the socially disadvantaged through the redistribution of free admission to cultural events among users of social services or people in prison. He is also involved in music – in 2022 he released his debut album Owning Down under the pseudonym toen.

Anna Hořejší studied theater production at DAMU in Prague. She worked in the team of the Prague Quadrennial and the Creative Europe Desk Czech Republic – Culture Office. She is one of the authors of the appeal “Culture and the Climate.” Since 2022 she has been the creative director of České Budějovice 2028 – European Capital of Culture.

Zai Xu is an interdisciplinary artist, producer, curator, and founder of the art space SVĚTOVA 1. Their work to date explores the experience of growing up as a person of color in a white society, feelings of vulnerability, and queer themes. Through writing, photography, and mixed-media installations, they explore the different components of their identity. Their first textual work, “Why Am I so White?” was published by tranzit.cz in the book Soft Spots as part of the 2022 Biennale Matter of Art. Since 2018, when they founded SVĚTOVA 1, an artist-run space focused on emerging, queer, and socio-political issues, Xu has focused on supporting young art, experimenting with exhibition formats, and searching for the optimal scheme of sustainability. They have dramaturgically and curatorially contributed to all of SVĚTOVA 1’s activities, co-producing over twenty-four exhibitions and seventy public programs.

Barbora Kleinhamplová is a visual artist and co-founder of the Institute of Anxiety, where she currently shapes the year-round programme. The Institute of Anxiety (IA) is a research platform for collaboration between people in the fields of art, education, theory, science and activism. The IA has long been dedicated to exploring the systemic causes of anxiety in society and seeking opportunities for change through formats that promote sharing, imagination, creativity and art. Starting in 2024, the IA is changing its functioning fundamentally and moving from its long-standing operation without a physical space to the Laboratory of Living Forms - a publicly accessible space in the park area of the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital, which will enable the platform to implement its long-planned plan to create a garden as a backdrop for the IU's cultural, artistic, and therapeutic programme. The IA has also been developing its activities in the field of education for a long time. In recent years, it has been running a year-long series of successive seminars called The School of Dissolving-Expanding-Connecting the Imagination, where we focus on working with the senses and emotions as an essential part of the educational process. In the past, he has also co-developed with Nazemi the Futuropolis methodology, linking critical pedagogy with systems thinking, the futures thinking method and working with the senses.

Olivera Těsnohlídková is a cultural sociologist and literary theorist. Originally from Belgrade, she currently lives in Brno, where she is finishing her PhD and teaching sociology at Masaryk University. Since 2024 she has been a member of the research team of the Literature & Society Laboratory at the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research interests center mainly around the social impact of satire, humor, and other forms of artistic expression, especially in the context of politics and migration. Her texts have been published in the journals Sociology Compass and HUMOR as well as the magazine Kapitál. She is a laureate of the Miloslav Petrusek Award.

The event is an output of the project Art Space Unlimited , which the initiative tranzit.cz (the organizer of the Biennale Matter of Art) organizes together with organizations from Barcelona (La Escocesa), Pristina (Foundation 17), Graz (<rotor>), and Budapest (OFF-Biennale), whose curators and educators will also be participating in the event. Art Space Unlimited is co-funded by the European Union and supported by a grant from the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.

The event is organized by the Biennale Matter of Art in colaboration with the Center and Foundation for Contemporary Arts Prague