Hay, Straw, Dump

Exhibiting artists: Nikola Brabcová, Ines Doujak, Justyna Górowska & Ewelina Jarosz, Hanna-Maria Hammari, Anna Hulačová, Martin Hurych, Petra Janda, Michal Kindernay, Věra Kotlárová-Chovancová, Diana Lelonek, Jumana Manna, Tamara Moyzes & Shlomi Yaffe, Tadeáš Polák, Ruta Putramentaite, Jan Ságl, Zorka Ságlová, Dagmar Šubrtová, Jakub Tajovský, Marie Tučková, David Vojtuš

Curators: The JCHS curatorial collective (Barbora Ciprová, Veronika Čechová, Tereza Jindrová, Karina Kottová)

Exhibition environment: Diana Lelonek

Production: Ondřej Houšťava, Zuzana Šrámková

Public programs: Nikola Ludlová in collaboration with the JCHS collective

Production of public programs: Sára Davidová

Graphic design: Tereza Haspeklová, Petr Kněžek

Translation: Lamija Čehajić, Viktor Heummann, Brian Vondrak

The exhibition is part of the international project Islands of Kinship: A Collective Manual for Sustainable and Inclusive Art Institutions.

The project is co-funded by the Czech Ministry of Culture, the City of Prague, and the European Union.

The group exhibition project Hay, Straw, Dump was prepared by the Jindřich Chalupecký Society for the spaces of the Václav Špála Gallery. The exhibition is a look back at Zorka Ságlová’s iconic installation for the exhibition Somewhere Something (also featuring Jan Ságl, Běla Kolářová, and Jiří Kolář), which was presented at the Václav Špála Gallery in 1969 under the dramaturgical direction of Jindřich Chalupecký. In the exhibition, Ságlová brought a large amount of drying hay, alfalfa, and straw into the gallery, which she and her friends regularly raked and turned, encouraging the audience to do the same. The works of the twenty local and international artists selected for the exhibition Hay, Straw, Dump reflect on both the consequences of the period of agricultural collectivisation and current ecofeminist perspectives. They focus on interspecies solidarity, respectful and sustainable relationships, and coexistence, depicting situations in which nature, contaminated by human activity, takes the reins and re-establishes a balance in which humans may or may not participate.