Public Space and Memory
The memory of a place, especially a publicly accessible one, was at the forefront of the considerations for the theme of this yearʼs triennial. Public spaces and their transformations, monuments that have varied on them as representatives of the times and society, buildings whose appearance forms the characteristic backdrop of the city and which are so reluctant to give way to each other, but also far less exposed places whose memory is more intimate and tied to the personal histories of individuals. This is almost universally true for the public space of any city. In Olomouc, historical periods commonly meet and clash for the right to exist; the omnipresent Baroque encounters socialist brutalism, the horizon of historic roofs and towers is interspersed with contemporary skyscraper construction, and faded sculptures from the era of ʻnormalisationʼ in forgotten corners are replaced by the loud works of contemporary artists on the main promenades. Into this seemingly dead and untouchable space, the triennial enters with several objects, realisations, and unobtrusive interventions that temporarily inhabit and transform public spaces in the historic centre and the areas surrounding it. Náměstí republiky (Republic Square), with Olomoucʼs sixth fountain, currently fully occupied by cars, will be taken over by icons of socialist housing estate design by the Slovak artist Ilona Németh. The same artist will also bring the Monument to the Women Who Cooked Salt to Olomouc, which will be placed in the newly renamed Náměstí Národních Hrdinů a Hrdinek (Square of National Heroes and Heroines).
In the University Hospital, we will erect a monument to workers and all the labourers who have ever felt threatened by machine production and artificial intelligence. The Hungarian duo Randomroutines, with their large installation, remind us of the fate of the Luddite movement and update the theme of the futile struggle against automation.
The Olomouc performer and artist Vladimír Havlík addresses the theme of automation through collaboration with artificial intelligence. For three locations in the public space, he has created images of iconic performances from art history as well as reinterpretations of his own actions in collaboration with AI.
The SEFO Wall next to the museum hosts several art projects that will rotate during the triennial. The Ukrainian duo EtchingRoom1 will perform artistic processing of data on the losses of the cultural heritage fund during the ongoing war conflict. Tomáš Vaněk has designed a new work from his series of hand-sprayed Particips for it. We will also present the architectural studio of Vojtěch Jemelka at the Faculty of Architecture at Brno University of Technology, whose students focused on the specific urban features of Olomouc and its neglected corners and residents as part of their semester projects.