Exhibition: BEAUTIFUL WORK

A selection of nine diverse realisations will be on display at the exhibition at the Prague House in Brussels. The works could be imaginatively divided into three categories - fashion, food, and structure. Here, young designers apply old, often forgotten crafts and revive them in new, contemporary forms.

Adam Kvaček focused his work on the processing of the cattail. The result of the cattail propaganda project is a bag and a series of photographs highlighting the craft's present-day competitiveness. Tereza Bláhová has taken a similar approach, modernising Horňák embroidery. She works not only with motifs and embroidery but also with costume patterns. Sofia Artemeva decorates clothes, and handbags with fish scales. She designed a collection of accessories, respecting the original purpose of the material, but at the same time, she experiments with its use at the level of jewellery. Ivo Jedlička responds to the growing popularity of baking homemade bread. He has therefore designed a collection of tools to facilitate its preparation. He combines here, for example, pottery or brushing. Karolína Vintrová, who focuses on food fermentation, works similarly. Other crafts include cutlery, shepherding, woodcarving, and leatherworking.

To highlight the very complex work and value of the crafts, a catalogue was published to accompany the exhibition. In addition to descriptions of individual works, it includes essays by young artists who share their experiences of working with masters in their field, their own creative journey, and plans for how to use traditional arts and practices in the future. The catalogue can also be seen as a guide to how traditional arts and practices can be preserved and developed in the future.

The exhibition Beautiful Work proves that even declining crafts can be modern and up-to-date, and will be on display at the Prague House in Brussels until the 30th of September.

Exhibitors: Sofia Artemeva, Tereza Bláhová, Miloslav Chytil, Ivo Jedlička, Sára Kučerová, Adam Kvaček, Jan Lechner, Mikuláš Procházka, and Karolína Vintrová. Curator of the exhibition: Adam Kvaček Pedagogical leadership: Michal Froněk and Jan Němeček (Heads of the studio), Michal Malášek (assistant professor) Production, and installation design: Adam Kvaček, Ivo Jedlička, and Jan Lechner. Graphic design: Oskar Koutný Photography: Samuel Alexander Petráš, Adéla Zlámalová, Dominik Bek, Petr Jelen, Karolína Kadlčáková, Petr Žemla, Barbora Hostašová, Lenka Glisníková a Karolína Matušková, and Silvie Leitmenová.

The exhibited works were created in cooperation with the Cooperative Labour Foundation and its project Beautiful Work (www.krasnaprace.org, IG: krasnaprace)

The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Prague House in Brussels.

The exhibition was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.

Open 12. 9.–30. 9. 2023: Monday—Friday 9 am — 5 pm by appointment at praguehouse@praha.euor phone +32 2 230 94 91

The Prague House in Brussels, Avenue Palmerston 16, Brussels, Belgium