Together with architect and curator Eva Truncová, we will kick off the fall segment of the year-long series STÁTKY of events dedicated to national symbols, collective memory, and civic rituals. The program for the sixth installment of the series combines a performance, a moderated discussion, and spatial interventions tailored to the Representatives’ Club.

What motivates us to celebrate national holidays and observe the rules associated with national symbols? Do we act out of a sense of pride, belonging, and respect for the past, or are we merely repeating a learned social choreography? Do we act at all?

Representatives’ Club on the grounds of Brno’s Old Town Hall is a place associated with political representation, institutional protocol, and decision-making. The site-specific interventions created by Eva Truncová explore how displacement, absence, or a change in context affect the meaning of a national symbol and our behavior toward it. What treatment of the symbol do we still consider legitimate, and what do we perceive as crossing the line of dignity?

The sixth installment of Státky also responds to the instrumentalization of state symbols by political powers, which can reduce their meaning to the promotion of specific ideological messages. It shows how such approaches can reinforce exclusive notions of who is and who is not part of the community being represented. Can we seek contemporary forms of collective identity in a democratic society through a new reading of symbols? Where does the line lie between a living ritual, its emptying of meaning, and its abuse? Is it possible to feel a sense of belonging without having to pretend to be completely united?

Eva Truncová, as an architect and curator, explores and tests the limits of the field, primarily through the publication of texts and her own authorial, exhibition, and other cultural projects, in which she collaborates in various roles. In her doctoral studies at the Faculty of Architecture in Brno, she explores the manifestations of ideology in undemocratic regimes within architecture, as well as critical interpretations and alternative readings of the positivist canon of architectural history. With the support of the Faculty of Architecture at Brno University of Technology (FA VUT), she founded and curates the 45,000 l showcase gallery in a public arcade in downtown Brno, where questions regarding the exhibition and (re)presentation of architecture are repeatedly raised. Since the summer of 2024, she has been a member of the editorial board of the architectural magazine ERA21.

More information here.