DIALOGUE: Engagement through Culture before and after 1989

Exhibition Dialogue

The project “Dialogue. Engagement Through Culture Before and After 1989” presents twelve perspectives of cultural personalities from three Central European countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. In the interviews, participants in the social changes that brought the establishment of democracy in the totalitarian bloc thirty years ago express their attitudes not only towards the former regime and the political events of 1989 but also towards the development and new position of the post-communist countries in Europe.

Voices of diverse attitudes, generations and genders recall and comment on critical moments and historical periods that affected the whole region – the creation of Charter 77, the pontificate of John Paul II, the birth of the Polish Solidarity movement, the Velvet Revolution, the presidency of Vaclav Havel, the division of Czechoslovakia, Mečiarism, the air tragedy near Smolensk and the 2018 murder of Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová. At the same time, a twelve interviewees reflect on significant changes in interpersonal relationships (whether due to growing affluence or the onset of new technologies) and deal with various topics in their own work through film, music, literature, visual arts, publishing practices, performances and happenings, lectures and newspaper articles to establish an important intellectual discourse in their homelands. For only a balanced dialogue implies freedom.

These personalities are artistically captured on photos by Ján Kekeli, Witek Orski and Dita Pepe in situations which have certain interdependence with their lives and the content of the interviews led by an author and a journalist Barbora Baronová.

Personalities:

• Peter Kalmus

• Zuzana Mistríková

• Tereza Nvotová

• Vladimír Michal

• Andrzej Jagodziński

• Dorota Masłowska

• Antonina Krzysztoń

• Zbigniew Libera

• Věra Roubalová Kostlánová

• Aleš Palán

• Miloš Rejchrt

• Saša Uhlová

Photographers:

• Ján Kekeli (Peter Kalmus, Zuzana Mistríková, Tereza Nvotová, Vladimír Michal)

• Witek Orski (Andrzej Jagodziński, Dorota Masłowska, Antonina Krzysztoń, Zbigniew Libera)

• Dita Pepe (Věra Roubalová Kostlánová, Aleš Palán, Miloš Rejchrt, Saša Uhlová)

Curators:

• Fotografie – Robert Švarc

• Text – Barbora Baronová

Organiser: Česká centra

Partners: 

• Galeria Arsenal, Białystok, Poland

• Banská Stanica contemporary, Bánská Šťiavnica, Slovakia

• Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR), Brussels, Belgium 

• Jazz Station Big Band, Brussels, Belgium 
  

Facebook page #dialogue1989