11th July 7 pm - Santai Warming Up

The first of a series of events that will take place as part of Kateřina Konvalinová’s residency, under the name of Santai. Using the form of a performative lecture and presentation, Kateřina will try to reassess her hitherto body of work and present the program of her forthcoming residency. A series of other artists’ videos will be part of the program, this all topped off with a karaoke party, if the general mood allows.

Kateřina Konvalinová (*91) is the student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, the Intermedia Work Studio. She employs especially the medium of video and performance. Among prominent topics of her art is love, understood as a radical transformative power, or in more general terms, as a way of conduct / policy in opposition to the current politics of ego and power. In her previous artworks she dealt with altered states of consciousness, psychedelic assisted therapy, psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s, or methods of dissolving one’s ego as a possible treatment of contemporary social psychoses. In her current work she further deals with the phenomenon of a forming, even traumatic event, in the sense “it was a hard year, but I am glad for it in retrospect”, as well as the motive of slowing down - reassessment – self-reflection. The slowing down and reassessment together with the growing unease are also leitmotifs of her summer residency at INI under the title Santai (relaxed, at ease), a topic she is going to elaborate on in the forthcoming series of events.

The event is taking place thanks to the financial support of the Czech Ministry of Culture, the State Cultural Fund and the City of Prague. 

22. a 23.8. Santai II: Readers Club of Wax Batik 

A relaxed session of a casual reading circle with a wax batik workshop. Come and enjoy some crafting while listening to a spoken word. The topic for this reading club will be postcolonial literature and cultural appropriation. All sorts of text are welcome – from theory to poetry.

Materials needed for the batik will be available. Should you like to bring e.g. your own piece of fabric or garment, be it ideally in white color. If you own or happen to know someone who owns a gas or electric portable cooker, please bring it with you.

First day: waxing.
Second day: dyeing the waxed fabric.

Small refreshments and sunshine in our souls included, yet any contribution to the common menu in the form of food or drinks welcome.

What to bring: extra clothes to change (hot wax tends to drip, so we do not recommend any fancy garments), a soft pencil and possibly a text or audio contribution to the readers club.

Long live batik!

31. 8. 19:00 Say bye to Santai