The exhibition presents a selection of photographic projects responding to the theme of language and interpersonal communication. The featured works explore what language allows us to express and what it conceals, how it shapes our perception of reality, and how it influences the dynamics of human relationships. Installed in the context of the bustling vestibule of the Můstek metro station, a site defined by relentless noise and constant movement, the exhibition brings moments of reflection into a space of everyday transit. The exhibit is realized as part of the Fotograf Zone festival program, which annually connects contemporary art with public space, seeking new forms of visual dialogue.

Open call is a competition format, but for us it is also a space for sharing, discovering and making new contacts across the art scene. We greatly appreciate everyone who entered – the quality, diversity and international variety of the projects submitted was extremely inspiring, making the selection process really difficult. It is possible that some of the projects that were not selected may lead to other future collaborations. Our sincere thanks to all those who applied.
Congratulations to the selected artists we look forward to further collaboration.

The projects will be presented in the vestibule of Můstek metro station (Line A) from October 27, 2025 to October 1, 2026.

WINNING PROJECTS

HAHN & HARTUNG in colaboration with Ioana Pascaru

– Wives Who Kill: Stories of Survival

The project Wives Who Kill: Stories of Survival by the collective Hahn Hartung recounts the stories of six women from Romania and Moldova who, after years of domestic abuse, killed their husbands in acts of extreme desperation. The series stems from deep engagement with societies where patriarchal violence remains normalized and where victims often receive neither help nor understanding. Hahn Hartung examines the complex boundary between guilt and victimhood – the point at which an act of resistance becomes both an expression of despair and a means of survival. The work invites reflection on how language, culture, and social structures shape our ideas of justice and power.

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Miguel Hahn and Jan-Christoph Hartung form a Berlin-based photographic duo and are graduates of photography programs in Darmstadt and Hamburg. Their work has been exhibited at C/O Berlin, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, and the Rencontres d’Arles festival. In 2015, they received the Lead Award for Photojournalism of the Year (ZEITmagazin). Their long-term projects focus on social and political issues and have been published in magazines such as GEO, Stern, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel.
Ioana Pascaru is the co-author of the project Gattenmörderinnen: Geschichten vom Überleben (Wives Who Kill: Stories of Survival), created together with the duo Hahn + Hartung. She grew up in Germany, where she studied media psychology and marketing in Berlin, Barcelona, and Lüneburg. As the project’s initiator, she conducted research and interviews, bringing forward women’s testimonies of resilience and survival.

ING: hahn_hartung

EVA VEI

– Blyertspenna

In Blyertspenna, Eva Vei documents her relationship with her cousin Kristina, who is on the autism spectrum. The central motif of the series is a simple pencil—an object that has lost its original function and become a personal symbol of stability and calm. Through fragmentary moments of everyday closeness, the artist depicts the protective environment that has formed around Kristina. Photography becomes a form of silent dialogue, in which the gaze itself transforms into language.

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Eva Vei’s work explores intimacy and self-reflection through nonlinear visual narratives that merge photography, painting, and sculpture. In 2022, she was selected among the Fresh Eyes Talents by GUP magazine, and in 2023 she was nominated as a Futures Talent by the Athens-based organization Void.

ING: __evavei

MARI KOLCHEVA

– Language Is The Only Homeland

In her project Blyertspenna, Eva Vei documents her relationship with her cousin Kristina, who is on the autism spectrum. The series revolves around an ordinary pencil, an object that has lost its original function and become a personal symbol of safety and calm. Through fragmentary moments of everyday closeness, Vei depicts the protected environment that has formed around Kristina. Photography becomes a form of silent dialogue, where the gaze transforms into language.

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Mari Kolcheva is a visual artist based in The Hague whose work investigates how documentary photography can capture complex stories tied to history, psychology, and the relationship between nature, scientific knowledge, and the human body. Her projects challenge normative frameworks and reflect on themes of difference, identity, and the body—both physical and political.

KATERINA KOUZMITCHEVA

– I Don’t Care 

The project I Don’t Care by Katerina Kouzmitcheva reflects on the phenomenon of contemporary social indifference and apathy, a condition the artist describes as a “mental epidemic.” Through staged photographs, she visualizes proverbs from various languages that refer to avoidance of responsibility and the retreat into one’s own world. With subtle irony and wit, Kouzmitcheva reveals how fear, helplessness, and cynicism have become embedded in both our everyday language and visual culture. The result is a bitter, humorous commentary on a society that has normalized its own indifference to the point of making it its reality.

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Katerina Kouzmitcheva is a Belarusian photographer based in Wrocław, Poland, working at the intersection of documentary and art photography. She explores how invisible boundaries—geographical, ideological, and psychological—shape individual lives and collective attitudes. Her projects address themes of memory, gender, and political systems.

ING: katerina_kouzmitcheva