The Necessity for Community Coexistence: Artist Talk with a Discussion and a Screening

The event The Necessity for Community Coexistence will bring together four seemingly disparate communities or collectives—tranzit.cz, SVĚTOVA 1, a collective of women from Obora, and sam83—who share values of care in order to make everyday reality more bearable. The event will begin with an artist talk by Sráč Sam, in which she will present the general principles of her work and the current exhibition I Promise at SVĚTOVA 1, along with a screening of documentation of the preparations for the exhibition. The ensuing discussion will introduce alliances as the essence of living and focus on basic needs, what we all have in common—the relationships and principles by which we observe and define our surroundings. How do we create our own conceptions of family, and how can these family forms intersect and help each other? What can be a collective strategy for survival in a world of uncertainty?

Denisa Bytelová is a critic, theorist, and curator of contemporary art as well as a university lecturer. In 2022, she completed her dissertation “Socially Engaged Art of Central and Eastern Europe and ‘Vision for a New Culture and Its Place’ – New Forms of Critical Art” at the Department of Art History of Charles University’s Faculty of Arts. For ten years she taught theoretical subjects at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, and she is currently an assistant in the studio Fine Arts II at UMPRUM. She deals with art whose associated mission is to soften social relations. She has had a lifelong collaboration with the artist Sráč Sam, with whom she participated in the conception of exhibitions and texts during her year-long residency at the Cursor Gallery (2021) and with whom she collaborates on the program of the gallery sam83 in Česká Bříza (since 2006). She has worked for the Archive of Fine Arts and for the internet databases abART and Artlist, where she has also been a member of the editorial board since 2023.

František Fekete (*1993) is active as an artist and curator. In 2020 he graduated from the Centre for Audiovisual Studies at FAMU in Prague. From 2015-2022, he was one of the curators of the artist-run Gallery 35M2. In addition, he has collaborated with other institutions such as Artyčok.TV (2023), Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2019-2020), GAMU in Prague (2019), Brno House of Arts (2017) and others. He regularly publishes texts on art and is the editor of several books. He is currently active in the collective and initiative for contemporary art tranzit.cz.

A loose unregistered collective of women from Obora has been coming together for several years. An important moment for them is not only their time spent together but also how they are able to create new communication skills that soften their environment. With a clear and open approach, they gradually penetrate the social structure and interpersonal relationships. They organize regular meetings and workshops. Their focus is on building local ties. Last year they expanded their activities to include ornithological walks in the nearby countryside and organized several open art and craft workshops. They recently also received support from the local municipality, which has provided them with space for further realizations. Their open communication offers sharing and strengthens relationships between members and the wider community.

Sráč Sam (*1969) is a visual artist, curator, and organizer who lives and works in Česká Bříza, where she also runs the gallery sam83, a platform for freely emerging culture. In her projects, Sam, whose adopted name defies convention, creates environments in which she exposes various forms of social manipulation without conforming to expectations of how art should be made. By setting up her own socioeconomic models she ranks among those artists who have anticipated an ethical turn in art that takes into account the working conditions and relationships within which the artwork is produced. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the hunt kastner gallery in Prague (Casting the Snowman’s Shadow, 2023), the Prague City Gallery at the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace (The Difference is in the Question, 2017–2018), Display, Prague (Regressive Development and Careless Care, Multilogues on the Now, 2018), and Berlinskej Model, Prague (Becoming a Shaman Fast and Easy, 2012) as well as in the group exhibitions Manifesta 14, Pristina (2022), Biennale Matter of Art, Prague (2022), and 8smička, Humpolec (2018). In 2021 Sráč Sam and Denisa Bytelová were guest curators at the Cursor Gallery at the Center for Contemporary Arts Prague. Sam also organizes the residency project Artist in Cottage, publishes PIŽMO, an independent magazine for strengthening cultural diversity, and has published the literary texts Vanda, Kuniba Likes Things Three Times and My Husband’s Fear.

Tereza Stejskalová (*1981) is the director of tranzit.cz and co-founder and artistic director of the Biennale Matter of Art. From 2018-2022 she worked as a researcher and lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She has collaborated on a large number of exhibitions and projects. She is the editor or co-author of several publications and the author of the book Death of the Artist. Long Live the Helpers! (tranzit.cz, 2023).

Zai Xu (*1998) 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 sociopolitical issues, Xu has concentrated 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, coproducing over twenty-four exhibitions and seventy public programs. In 2022, they initiated As We Grow, an educational research series focused on learning through making for artists at the start of their careers. In 2023, they co-initiated the Queer Knowledge Festival with the aim of collaboratively exploring and sharing queer and feminist knowledge, approaches, and perspectives.

Magdaléna Michlová is an academic activist from the postindustrial heart of Silesia based in Prague. She works in the fields of sociology, cultural theory, and cultural anthropology but mostly at their overlaps and interfaces. Her research focuses on gender inequalities in academia and activist resistances to them. She works at the Centre for Gender and Science at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and at the Institute of Sociological Studies atCharles University’s Faculty of Social Sciences.