Prague Quadrenniale

Time flies when having fun... This summer was again time for Prague Quadrenniale. PQ is a humonguous exhibition for performance design and space which goes on for two last weeks in June once in every four years.

I went there last time at 2007 and definately wanted to renew my visit this year, because I knew that most of my Finnish friends and colleagues will also attend. So it was sort of big powwow for all the Finns to meet =).

Some mindflow of and about the week that I spent in Prague follows...

Main Exhibition
The main exhibition was this time arranged into the National Gallery and housed more than 60 countries, in both national and student sections.

Mainly the smörgasbord was somewhat overwhelming and in the end bit dull, because it was just too full and colorful to comprehend. But there was some pearls hidden among them too. Or at least, something that made me wonder. And it's is also curious how strongly the geographical and cultural identity shows in the exhibits. One can clearly tell apart the Latin-American countries from Scandinavian, and so on.

One of the national sections, namely Iceland, had a very strong impact on me. Icelandic space was set up as a white room with white decorative furniture and white china tea session. Among this hovered a white dressed, pale faced ice queen in a very slow motioned, regal way. In the frames on the wall were running some video clips of performances. Very calming and inviting to observe whereas many other were more off-putting with their abundance. Nicely curated altogether, and what made me really lift my hat to these people was that it was all an effort of one woman. She didn't get any support from Iceland's government, so she just put it together on her own. Way to go, girl!!!

Ice queen in her regime

Some others for comparison.

Brazil: the winner of "Best realisation of section."

 

Abundant USA

I was hovering for quite some time on the USA space. There was very friendly and talkative guy to assist the visitors. He came up to me while I was examining one of the models there, telling me that the designer would be there the following day to answer all the question and tell about the project. I had to confess to him, that it was all interesting and cool, but tht I was actually more interested in tiny video projectors they had placed into the model. The guy was not offended, but told me ever so eagerly where I could buy them, what they cost and what are the technical specifications. Good service, indeed there =)

Little Samsung projector in the size of a cigarette box. Want one!

Some of the sections I somewhat didn't get at all. Like Switzerland here below. The finest presentation of the country's most presentable performance design?  

Switzerland

I collected below some images of curious stuff that was also exhibited in the Main Exposition. First two of them are from the Russian space. There was some acoustic sculpture kind of installations and then these plates that presented funny optical illusions created by circular scratches on the metallic surface. 

Russian illusions 1.

Russian illusions 2.

Norwegians had built up this quite fascinating and elaborate mechanical landscape where objects moved in an eerie choreography combined with distorted video imagery.

Norwegian landscape.

These are only to mention few things that moved me, but I won't bore you with all of the things that made me scratch my head. Enough is enough. Let's move on...

Students

Student sections were as, or more, controversial as the national sections. I was admiring mostly the fact that the eastern European students are ever so skilled in good old fashioned painting, drawing and sketching. Makes me jealous... But some stuff that was exhibited was quite witty. I have to mention few, and not because I'm also a Finn.

The Finnish students had created this great big egg that contained a soundscape. They would perform a test before letting you enter, to determine that you're not too intoxicated (for one reason or other) to take the trip. All very proper and scientific =)

The Egg.

Instructions how to use the egg.

Me following the instructions =) Photo by Julia Stone

Another cool one was Belgium. They had used the famous Belgian mussels as their theme which dominated the whole space. Some miniature models, selection of costumes and protfolios had all been nestled inside the mussels. Cool idea.

Visitor looking into the costume exhibit.

The program of the Quadrenniale was immense. All over the city there was something going on. Directly related to the PQ or off-PQ. I didn't attend to so many of the lectures or workshops that were offered throughout the duration. My main reason to go to Prague in the first place was to meet my friends and just do some exploring in a very relaxed way.

I got caugth on attending one of the lectures nonetheless =) Photo by Julia Stone.

What I found refreshing was to get off the main track, which applies both the exhibition and the city environment. One of the cool presentations I saw was this pyro-show performed in one old squatted industrial building somewhere well east from city centre. It was very relaxing to get away from this well polished and groomed way of putting things on display at National gallery.

Fire on Trafacka by Amanitas.

I think this is already lengthy enough for now. Other postings will follow covering other aspects of my visit in Prague =). Until then, bye!!!