The exhibition is the result of a fourteen-day artistic research residency in Opava under the STARS EU program. During this time, the artist engages in a dialogue with an unfamiliar city, through which everyday images are collected across different media—photography, graphic recording, audiovisual, and sound practices. In this way, an organic relationship with the city emerges, activating unexpected ways of seeing and narrating.

The artistic research does not focus on what is spectacular or exotic, but rather on what generates a shift in meaning. In this process, the image becomes fragmented while simultaneously activating itself in space as a network of relations. The exhibition is conceived as a reflective installation of the city, its concentrated aura captured by an unburdened gaze. This Benjaminian aura expands into the gallery environment and initiates a participatory dimension, inviting the viewer to co-create the work. Art is not only to be seen, but also experienced as situational and relational. Opava thus does not appear as a mere backdrop, but as a direct partner in dialogue—a system of resonances in which the external and the internal mutually affect one another.

Noemí Peña Sánchez is a photographer and multimedia artist, and also Vice-Dean for Academic Planning and International Relations at the University of La Laguna in Tenerife, Spain.

Curator: Jana Orlová