Memory of the Nation at Stalin by Kolmo

Architect: Kolmo - Lenka Hejlová, Martin Hejl, Pavel Uličný, Petr Láska

Website: www.kolmo.eu, www.loomonthemoon.com

Contact e-mail: lenka.hejlová@kolmo.eu, martin.hejl@kolmo.eu

Exhibition concept: Martin Hejl, Karel Poupě, Mikuláš Kroupa, Jan Polouček, Longiy

Exhibition authors:

Post Bellum – www.postbellum.cz

Kolmo – www.kolmo.eu

Loom on the moon – www.loomonthemoon.com

Pink – www.bypink.cz

Client: Post Bellum

Project location: Former monument Stalin, Letenské sady, Prague 7, Czech Republic

Project year: Kolmo/ 2017-2018

Construction: ARA / 2018

Completion year: 2018

Expense: 430 000 €

Project size: 6.000 m2(91 m2accessible for visitors)

Site size: 10.000 m2

Photo credits: Jakub Skokan, Martin Tůma / BoysPlayNice, www.boysplaynice.com

About the exhibition

The 100th anniversary of Czechoslovak Republic was used as an opportunity to look into the Memory of the Nation. We chose periods and events which had shaped the modern history of this nation. We work with subjective memories.

Due to the contemporary disturbances of the principle of democracy and respect to human rights, we think it necessary to remind ourselves that the civil freedom is nothing that comes as a matter of course. This is the reason why we have decided to focus our exposition on the totality in Czechoslovakia in 1939 to 1989 and on the fight against this totality. The former monument of the dictator J. V. Stalin is a suitable venue for this. It symbolises humiliation and servitude at the time of communism and reminds us of freedom for which thousands of people had sacrificed their lives. The inaccessible underground space is less known – a concrete pillar hall which still houses stones from the demolished sculpture.

The exposition consists of four parts: Images, Testimonies, Stelae, Wall. We present stories from the Memory of the Nation collection.

In the underground, you will find two zones of nine chapters. Both zones, however, are complementary. Images (the right entry) and Testimonies (left entry) treat similar topics but they use a different form. In Images we always choose one historical moment and let it work on the visitors.

In Testimonies, witnesses speak about the period when these events happened.

Open-air Stelae on the lower terrace connect Testimonies and Images and provide historical data on the events. In the park they tell the stories of witnesses.

The Wall is a symbol of censorship, unfreedom and violent division of the world.

Memory of the Nation

In 2001, a group of journalists and historians established a charitable trust named Post Bellum. They realised how important it was to record memories of people who had lived through WWII and communism. Their collection, called the Memory of the Nation, contains about seven thousands of unique stories.

Architecture

The exhibition is designed as a family of three linear objects, each deals with the view by specific form. Two of the objects allow the view, one blocks it. The object in the exposition Testimonies provides a panoramic view for a group of visitors looking in one direction. The object in the exposition Images sets a 270-degree visual angle to a limited number of selected visitors. Eventually, the object of the Wall prohibits the outlook to large crowd completely. All three objects are articulated as abstract bodies, their structures are hidden to avoid competition with the Monument. All of them work with extreme dimensions and feelings of distress and discomfort, evoking the minimal spaces of concentration camps and prison solitary confinement.

Hall of Images

In the exposition Images we focused on the experience of a moment, we are not providing a lesson of history. We chose the form of the audio-visual animated installation which uses, to a larger extent, imagination and symbolism. We use 3D videomapping and spatial sound.

Images: The gathering of the Nazis in the Wenceslas Square, 1939, an aircraft fight in the Battle of Britain, 1940, the transport of Jews from the Bubny railway station, 1941, the fight of the paratroopers in the crypt of the St Cyril and Methodius Church, 1942, the end of WW2 in Prague, the brutality in the communist prison at Bory, the fight for the radio in the Vinohradská avenue, 1968, the Secret Police interrogation during normalisation, demonstrations at the Letná plain, November 1989.

Hall of Testimonies

In the exposition Testimonies, witnesses from the Memory of the Nation collection speak, providing testimony on the time in which they lived or events they witnesses or took part in. The aim is to provide the visitors with various memories, opinions and perspectives on the events of the twentieth century. You will hear testimonies of war veterans, political prisoners and dissidents, as well as the perspectives of the communists, Secret Police officers and informers.

Testimony of witnesses: WWII – the occupation of Czechoslovakia, local and foreign resistance, holocaust, Prague Uprising, the post-war period. The arrival of communism and the 1950s, the invasion of Soviet troops in 1968, normalisation, the Velvet Revolution.

Collaborators

Art director: Martin Hejl

Script: Mikuláš Kroupa, Martin Hejl, Karel Poupě, Kateřina Hejlová

Director: Martin Hejl, Viktor Portel, Karel Poupě

Producer: Jan Polouček

Graphic design: Petr Štěpán

Construction: Jiří Bezouška

Statics: Tereza Otcovská, Roman Kalamár

AV producer: Alžběta Karásková, Karel Poupě

Photographer: Salim Issa

Used photos and videos: Archiv Paměť národa, ČTK a Lukáš Žentel

Animators: Longiy, Petr Janák, Vojtěch Šálek, Vojtěch Pecka, Jan Nálepa, Michal Lažanský