Opening of the exhibition GROTESK – The Common Language of Eastern Europe with a guided tour
We invite you to the opening of the international exhibition GROTESK – The Common Language of Eastern Europe, which presents the grotesque as a shared language across Eastern Europe. The project brings together photographers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine, highlighting how absurd, tragicomic, and bizarre elements have become an integral part of our cultural expression.
The opening will include a guided tour with the curators, who will introduce the exhibition’s concept and the broader context of the G.R.O.T.E.S.K. project. Developed in collaboration with partner festivals in Prague, Bratislava, Łódź, and Budapest, the project will connect several European cities throughout 2025.
The exhibition reflects the region’s history, its collective experiences, and the humor that has long served as a defense against the uncertainties and upheavals of history. In the spirit of the Kafkaesque tradition, the grotesque offers insight into the absurdity of everyday life and shows that through exaggeration and irony we discover a common language.
The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
Opening Event · October 4, 2025, 6:00 p.m.
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Artists ·
Hungary · Csilla Klenyánszki, Hórusz Archive (Sándor Kardos), Éva Szombat, László Török, Zsuzsi Uj
Czechia · Oskar Helcel, Dita Pepe, Iren Stehli
Slovakia · Andrej Balco, Martin Kollár, Zuzana Pustaiová, Viktor Šelesták
Poland · Zbigniew Libera, Natalia LL, Rafał Milach, Agnieszka Sejud
Romania · Mihai Barabancea, Tamás Hajdu
Ukraine · Alexander Chekmenev, Julie Poly
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Curators ·
István Virágvölgyi, Capa Center (Budapest, Hungary)
Sára Jeleňová, OFF Bratislava (Bratislava, Slovakia)
Světlana Malina, Fotograf Zone festival (Prague, Czech Republic)
Marta Szymańska, Fotofestiwal (Łódź, Poland)
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Venue · Holešovice Market, public space
(near Hall 24 on the Market Square side)
Bubenské nábř. 306, 170 00, Prague 7 Holešovice
Open Group – Repeat After Me 2022
The project Repeat After Me 2022 by the creative collective Open Group works with sound as the primary carrier of wartime experience. Instead of images of destruction, it focuses on the acoustic trace of conflict—on the sounds of weapons, explosions, sirens, and silence, which inscribe themselves into the bodies and memories of people living through war or forced exile. The ability to recognize these sounds is not a matter of artistic or sociological experiment; however experimental its aesthetics may be, it signals an effort to survive.
Too close to remember
The exhibition explores the theme of synaesthesis – i.e. a reaction of the body and mind and an experience that melds the sensory modalities of diverse entities existing in the digital, posthuman and technological environments. The project develops the discourse on various approaches to perception, especially in reference to the crisis of authenticity of human sensory perception that finds itself under pressure from contemporary power structures, surveillance and production.
Chaeyeon Kang – 28 days
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