Pavel Jestřáb’s contribution to the exhibition by the Uprka brothers brings an unexpected and perhaps even radical intervention. Jestřáb expands the brothers’ unambiguous and doggedly focused attention on the local scene of South Moravia to a maximal, surprising axis. From building on the “Uprka tradition” through collaboration with the local folk ensemble Dúbrava from Dubňany, to the internationalization of traditional costumes exported to Asia—specifically to the island of Taiwan— to a seemingly absurd detour into distant galaxies and the supernatural.

Despite all the energy and creative playfulness, however, an urgent message seeps through to us. The world of the past—a world that flowed along by inertia, full of reassuring certainties—has ceased to exist, and we struggle to find a clear answer to the question of how to successfully navigate the current turbulence. No sooner has our head stopped spinning from one event than the dizziness of another sets in.

Contemplation, sadness, the weight of fate, and a sense of exhaustion—motifs repeatedly expressed in the works of the Uprk brothers through downcast gazes and stooped bodies—are confronted by Jestřáb’s intervention with the concept of a repeated gaze directed high upward. It is entirely up to us whether we decide that this deprives us of even our last point of reference, or, on the contrary, offers a scenario of hope.