A MULTIFORM PROJECT AND GROUP EXHIBITION, PRODUCED JANEIL ENGELSTAD

ARTISTS INCLUDE JANEIL ENGELSTAD, GRAFIXPOL, OTO HUDEC, MAGDA STANOVÁ, MIKLÓS SURÁNYI, MATEJ VAKULA, AND TEHNICA SCHWEIZ.

www.voicesfromthecenter.net

CHICAGO: Through the multiform project, Voices From the Center, an interactive web platform and group exhibition, Central Europeans reflect on their lives before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sharing these stories through the lens of social documentary and art, producer Janeil Engelstand has brought together emerging artists from across Central Europe to create a portrait of a people emerging from one political and cultural era into another.

Voices from the Center grew out of a series of conversations that Janeil Engelstad had with people, while living in Central Europe, about the post-Communist era. Interviewing former dissidents, writers, artists, politicians, teachers, young adults and villagers, her subjects talked about what freedom meant to them and expressed their dreams, fears and hopes for themselves, their country and the world. Working in dialogue with the other artists included here, Engelstad uses this work as the foundation for an installation that includes a timeline, portraits of the participants, and other images and fragments that are woven throughout the rest of the exhibition.

Polish design team Grafixpol created a poster portraying the illusions that people had during communism through the metaphor of a kaleidoscope, including excerpts from Engelstad’s research. Artist Oto Hudec is reconstructing a life-size Skoda, referencing his grandfather’s Skoda 100 MB model as a lens to examine the quality of life for a middle class family during socialism in Czechoslovakia. Prague based artist, Magda Stanová’s site-specific, large-scale wall drawings provide insight into various socialist themes by dissecting language, official documents, newspapers and the nuances of humor from the communist era. Miklós Surányi’s portraits of Hungary’s iconic family, weekend houses, constructed from trash and post-industral materials and abandonded equipment at deserted construction sites, coupled with his interview with Engelstad, examine the confluence of history, time, place and the often failed promises of capitalism. Technica Schweiz (Gergely László and Péter Rákosi) project photographs of both the real and the imagined garage interiors side-by-side, referencing the Socialist era “garage-street” – which today are mostly meeting places for men or an escape family life or a scene of alternative youth culture. Reflecting on the use of public places to gather, commune and protest during communism and most recently in the Middle East and on Wall Street, Slovak artist Matej Vakula‘s audio installation incorporates interviews with people across the United States and Central Europe. The piece’s basic, bare speakers echo the quality of broadcast sound and sound systems prevalent throughout the Eastern Bloc during communism.

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Tags: And Tehnica Schweiz., Grafixpol, Janeil Engelstad, Magda Stanová, Matej Vakula, Miklós Surányi, Oto Hudec, threewalls, Voices From the Center