Where is my home?

An Exhibit at the Prague DOX

The main exhibition at the Center of Contemporary Art DOX in Holesovice asks a seemingly simple question- in the last years seemingly a more important one. How many of us will give  some thought to these words taken from our national anthem? Maybe sometimes when we are returning from some trip and our plane is approaching  Ruzyne- we might think about the reality of an ordinary day. But it this short moment before landing sufficient?

To express what “my home” is- what and where it is- is a challenge, a question that many well-known artists tried to respond to ;,For example Jiri David, Tomas Cisarovsky, Karel Nepras, Tomas Dzadon, Lukas Jasansky a Martin Polak, Martin Mainer, Katerina Seda, Jintrich Stret, Martin Zet…..Kristina Norman, Tallervo Kelleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinem or Krzysztof  Wodiczko.

The large exhibit consists of varied installations, paintings, photographs, objects. It talks to you, it even sings at you. It forces you to think- what kind of a place is it where we want to be at home? Is it beautiful, safe or neglected? Is it an old chair in my living room or a piece of  a garden in the middle of Prague which gives and illusion of nature in a metropolis? Do the brown children from the next street belong to my home? Do the recently created portraits of members of old nobility descendants also belong? What does a home of pre-war Czech immigrants to Argentina or to Chile look like, or what about Bata communities in Indonesia? Why do the singing Helsinki citizens in a group called “Sbor stiznosti” ittitate in a humorous installation of expressions of globalization both you and me? Can I do something about it? The exhibition poses questions but it also gives answers.: It gives your and ours answers: You can hang them on a tree of wishes. Right next to it you may read how children  from Holesovice elementary schools understand the problem. Part of the exhibition is a series of discussions ”What do we understand by the term “at home” in several cities of our republic, or a marathon of  letter writing of Amnesty International, Czech Republic.

Centrum soucasneho umeni DOX, Poupetova 1, Praha 7 – until January 13

Obr. Karel Nepraš - O hrdinství aneb Hloupý Honza

Translated by Marie Dolanska