Dear Readers,
As you are no doubt aware, there is currently a crisis situation in the Czech Republic and abroad, and it has unfortunately forced us to cancel all of our planned public events for the time being. In addition, we have had to say good-bye to our current Agosto artist in residence, Borbala Soós, who had to return home before the borders were closed.
In this difficult time, our focus is on the safety of the public and of ourselves. Social life must be put on hold, and so for now, we will have to make our web presence the focus of our public profile, at least until things get back to normal.
In place of events and social gatherings, we invite you to immerse yourselves in our ongoing Mediateka collections, which have undergone intensive development over the last two years. The largest collection among them consists of the grand de-archiving project of the Hermit Foundation and Center for Metamedia Plasy 1992-1999, which offers endless hours of browsing. Our most recent addition, Speculative Ecologies: The Fertile Ground Between Art and Ecology is a collection of articles and essays responding to themes evoked in the anthology of the same name, published late last year. Similarly, the collection Upsych316a: Universal Psychiatric Church: Opera Omnia of the JSD presents a multimedia map, allowing a sort of virtual walk-through of this unique site by outsider-artists.
In addition, if you visit the collection devoted to last year’s Sonic Circuits series of concerts and public events, you can watch the video documentation we have created, which includes concert recordings, performances and interviews with the artists involved. A central tendency among the artists on view is improvisation — a subject that seems more and more apt for us by the day!
Please keep reading this newsletter and we will provide information about the resumption of regular operations as soon as it becomes available. In the mean time, wash your hands, don’t touch your face and stay indoors!
Agosto Foundation
Aether
A film by Rûken Tekeş
7 September 2020, 8:30 PM
Cinema Ponrepo
Happily, we have been able to re-schedule this screening, which had to be cancelled earlier this year due to the state of emergency of COVID-19. Please re-join us at Cinema Ponrepo for our return to the silver screen.
The film will be briefly introduced by art historian Dr. Tamás Sajó.
After the screening, there will be a question-and-answer session via Skype with the film's director, Rûken Tekeş.
Hasankeyf is set in a land of breathtaking nature, forms and landscape. A cave-city of ancient Mesopotamia with at least 12,000 years of historical, cultural and ecological significance located in Kurdish region of Turkey beside the river Tigris, Hasankeyf and the Tigris Valley meet nine of the selection criteria used by UNESCO to select sites included on the World Heritage List, but the Turkish government refused to apply for its recognition. Unfortunately, the destruction of this place, important not only for the history and culture of Turkish Kurdistan, but also for world heritage, has already begun, despite protests by local residents and their efforts to include the area in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …
It Started with Yellow Walls
An Interview with Kateřina Skalíková
Za Opavu
Za Opavu – “For Opava” – is a long-running association that can be described as a multifaceted organizer of local cultural and social life in the Opava region. Its central goals are the protection of cultural patrimony, the environment and healthy living conditions in the city of Opava and its surroundings. The members of the group actively work as political cultural opposition to city leadership, offering cultural commentary on Opava and its regional planning.
ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …
Call for Nominations 2020
Perpedes Grant Program
Nominations will be accepted until April 30, 2020. There is still time to submit!
As part of its grant program Perpedes, the Agosto Foundation requests nominations from the general public for the support of the activities of individual artists, as well as for artistic or cultural projects. The Perpedes Grant Program seeks to foster a closer connection between artistic and cultural activities and the daily lives of various social strata and communities, on both the local and regional scales. The program focuses on strengthening smaller individual and civic initiatives which make use of interdisciplinary collaboration, and which address themes pertaining to social and environmental networks, while working within the framework of contemporary art.
New: Join the new Perpedes General Mailing List newsletter to keep up-to-date on the progress of Perpedes selection process. Subscribe by checking the box on our newsletter subscriptions page.
ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …
Borbála Soós
Curatorial Residency
Borbála Soós is a Hungarian curator and art historian based in London. In response to the ecological, social and political urgency of the climate crisis, Soós seeks to develop new curatorial themes through the concept of rewilding. The term rewilding refers to an ecological practice that seeks to undo anthropocentric environmental transformation, by means of reestablishing rich multi-species entanglements. Rewilding is visionary, future-centric, resilient, and promotes dynamic processes that can adapt over time.
ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴀʀᴛɪᴄʟᴇ …
čᴇsᴋʏ …
