Nádraží jako osa světa – festival m3

Erika Velická’s work often thematises the power of animal archetypes, and she is interested in the meaning of borders – both in landscape and social terms. She critically reflects on the blurred boundaries of natural/animal and social/human space. She creates an indeterminate and at the same time tense in-between state full of polar contradictions. She works with themes of suffering, the search for escape. Her installation in the space of the Libeň station deals with a typical “non-place”, situated at the interface between the land owned by the railway administration and the city. This non-place is obviously used mainly for taking a quick shortcut or for walking dogs. The ground plan of a narrow staircase, defined by a visible railing and leading to an indeterminate cellar space, a concrete block probably with the function of a ‘boundary stone’ and a concrete shelter, co-define a rather dismal configuration in a space in which nobody desires to stay a minute longer than is strictly necessary. The artist sets the scene for possible events, temporary “intersections between the mythology of the neighbourhood and the mythology of specific existence”. She reinforces the sense of emptiness of a place that seemingly lacks meaning. It can be all the more inspiring because it is, as it were, outside any official order, a space for personal accounts of “anxiety and creative dreaming”. It can become “a world of children’s games (the archetype of the hide-and-seek and labyrinth associated with the world of adventure books and films)” and also a haven for the homeless. (Michal Ajvaz) The non-place – as if movement in it were a goal, a “place passed by”, like the railway station itself: “a place in which we have no will to rest” (Anna Beata Háblová) 

(Iva Mladičová,  2022)

photo: Chantal Gál