The new school in Strašnice is an Art Nouveau building built in 1909 according to Josef Domek’s project. It was the military headquarters of Prague Uprising at the end of WWII. After the war, it was the seat of a school for children with special needs, as well as the basic and high school for pupils with behavioral disorders. Since 2009 the local civic associations have aimed to restore the original educational purpose to the abandoned object. In 2014 the building was proclaimed a cultural heritage object.
The curators of the main exhibition project Places of Act are Denisa Václavová, Krištof Kintera, and Ondřej Horák. „The topic of the exhibition section Everything is Different is the response to social, environmental, and economic changes we have experienced and we should react to. We would like to engage the environment in which the festival will take place and create a sort of school of life where viewers will have a chance to go back to school. The building will be a big educational simulator,” says Denisa Václavová, the supervisor and curator. The accompanying program will offer thematic guided tours with the emphasis on local institutions and communities in Strašnice. The platform Do You Have a Knack for Art? will prepare a special program for schools and children. The festival school is planned for art professionals.
The theatre program will deal more with Czech production this year. Having chosen the new school in Strašnice, the festival returns to the original concept of enlivening non-theatre spaces with site-specific projects. „Our team unanimously agreed that this year’s edition will focus on the support and presentation of local arts, supporting individual artists and teams who have been affected by the current situation and the aftermath. The priority of the festival dramaturgy is unrealized projects. We were forced to postpone international projects to 2021 but there is yet a bigger challenge to face. We feel that Czech artists truly rely on us, we want to celebrate the anniversary edition and thank everybody who has worked with us in the past 25 years,” says Pavel Štorek, the programmer.
The program will be announced in September 2020.
More information at www.ctyridny.cz.