FFU 4

Fotofestival Uničov 4
April 30 — May 4, 2014

The program of the fourth edition is tied together by the theme of relationships. What do our relationships to people, to our immediate surroundings, to nature, to art… mean to us? Past editions encompassed both classical ways of working with the photographic image /Michal Kalhous, Michal Reichstäter/ and other approaches to the medium. Several distinctive interpreters of photographic images have also appeared here /Martin Fišr, Jan Freiberg, Ondřej Hruška/. This year’s gathering will definitely not be only about photography. Alongside three openings, the program includes conversations of remembrance, a talk, a concert and theater performances that will let us experience “images” in real time. The 4th installment will thus be exceedingly multi.
/Petr Willert/

Radek Čák /1982/ is a graduate of FaVU in Brno (Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology), where he first studied in the Drawing Studio and, after it was closed, completed his degree in the Printmaking Studio. In his modest output as a student, the most important role was played by the theme of “work” — the very thing that usually fills even final-year students with dread. The dystopian vision of the art-school graduate with no place on the job market did, in the end, come true. Fortunately only temporarily, and paradoxically, during this difficult period Čák began making more work than ever before.
The paintings that are the main medium of his work would not fit into Malá galerie, and besides, this town is not adequately prepared for surrealist terror. So the selection for Uničov consists of delicate small installations that inconspicuously take up space in his apartment. Naturally, this sophisticated “home design” is grounded more in art history than in leafing through interior-design magazines.
/Martin Fišr/
opening May 2, 17:00, Malá galerie

Filip Beránek /1989/ is studying in the master’s program at the Studio of Advertising Photography in Zlín. In earlier series he has explored the theme of “do it yourself” /DIY, 2013/, examined effects and techniques in contemporary photography /Research, 2013/, and created an anti-fashion campaign /Motyky, 2010/.
Slepý oheň (literally “blind fire”) is not a Czech Television documentary. Slepý oheň is an utterly bad translation produced by Google Translate when you type in the term blindfire. Blindfire symbolically opens all kinds of sporting events and championships. The series deals with a phenomenon of contemporary society, the mindless watching of sporting events, and points to it as a passive activity that, without any physical activity whatsoever, triggers countless emotional experiences and the outbursts that go with them. It collectivizes people on the basis of a fictitious sense of belonging and hatred of the opponent.
/Filip Beránek/
opening May 2, 18:00, Galerie U Minoritů

Lanugo
Liberi in utero
Original text: Dei Terra
Translation: Eva Adamová
Direction, set design: Magda Ada Veselá
Cast: Kristýna Balšánková, Lenka Benešová, Kristýna Doubravová, Albina Feofilaktova, Kateřina Röderová, Jiří Slimařík
Special thanks: Plavecký bazén Uničov
From there to here… Where to? I’m inside. I don’t want to come out. I want to enjoy it to the very last moment…
An audiovisual composition in a Zen rhythm, with a memory of what we cannot remember…
May 2, 20:00, Koncertní síň

Věra Faltysová and Eugenie Dubová
A remembrance of the giant photographs once installed in the foyer of the elementary school: an excavator and the children’s folk ensemble Ječmínek. As the longtime photographer of the Uničov engineering works, Věra Faltysová helped through her work to build the identity of the company that was the dominant force in shaping the town’s postwar identity. Eugenie Dubová, a teacher and the founder of the children’s folk ensemble Ječmínek, used her ethnographically oriented activities to recall something of the past of a place radically transformed by postwar circumstances. Mrs. Faltysová’s storytelling is like a crime series. The strategic figure of the photographer in a socialist enterprise. Documenting production, products, defects, accidents, celebrations, company children’s summer camps, conventions of party bigwigs. An invisible figure in the company’s lost visual history. Will Mrs. Dubová’s stories be images of a rural idyll? / conversations led by Blanka Švédová
May 3, 14:00, Muzeum baroka

Jan Brož /1988/ graduated from AVU (Academy of Fine Arts) in Prague and is currently pursuing postgraduate studies at UMPRUM in Prague, in the Graphic Design and New Media studio. In 2013 he and Michal Landa founded the studio Parallel Practice.
In Uničov he will present his current project and the publication SSSSSS, together with their themes and starting points. In collaboration with the curator Jan Zálešák, he seeks to grasp, in the language of visual art, today’s world of late capitalism, the 24/7 regime and manic productivity. The presentation is not only an invitation to the ongoing exhibition of the same name in Brno, but also an attempt at a deeper insight into the issue.
May 3, 18:00, Muzeum baroka

brigita heinze nenávidí
Děti veselé
Original text: Elfriede Jelinek
Translation: Jitka Jílková
Direction, set design: Magda Ada Veselá
Dramaturgy: Barbora Chovancová, Jana Posníková, Magda A. Veselá
Cast: Lenka Benešová, Aneta Kučerková, Jana Posníková, Julie Rendlová, Kateřina Röderová, Veronika Zárubová
brigita hates heinz.
and heinz, too, is instantly seized by feeling.
it is new and terrifying at the same time.
brigita and heinz have no story. the story of b and h never becomes a story, it is something that is simply suddenly there (click) and is called love.
brigita hates heinz most warmly.
ah…
A bra show in pink about things that are not pink.
May 3, 20:00, Koncertní síň

Debbi love / concert
+ FXŠ DJs, DJ SSSSSStar guitar
May 3, 21:00, Hostinec U Černého orla