Protest platform

In these days, the public space has been particularly interesting to us because it allowed us, as citizens, to express our opinions on the social situation. The deaths of Ján, Martina, Henry, distrust in the work of several institutions, and disagreement with many foolish opinions and moods demanded that we go out to the squares and express our dissatisfaction by joining gatherings with tens of thousands of other people. Our contribution to this year's Landscape festival – with its geometry and technical solution, it serves as a functional memorial to the place for the speaker – a ladder, staircase, pulpit, platform, balcony, window to the square – it is a protest podium, a place just a little in front of and a little above the crowd. This autumn will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia. A line of cuts originally designed purely for functional purposes through the wooden panel turned out to be suitable for representing the state border that did not exist one hundred years ago. The panels, rotated around a common edge, transform a 2D map into a 3D puzzle, where states connect only at a certain angle of view, only for a brief moment, then the image is torn apart or obscured, no longer functioning together. Conversely, it was due to a manufacturing error, which we discovered during the takeover of the material a few days before the festival opening. After debating whether to cancel it all or at least turn it around to hide that image, we realized that it was actually quite nice. There are many new layers of interpretation and they are entertaining; choose which one suits you. The truth of the creation is, however, that in Czechoslovakia/Slovenskočesku, we couldn't find a manufacturer of CLT panels who could produce the object for us in a short time and in the size we needed. So we had it made in Austria. And even there, a few kilometers across the border, that border meant nothing to the milling operator; it was just a random curve for him, which is actually incredibly interesting and opens up further layers of interpretation. Or he wanted to be a co-author, and this was his contribution. Or he was a monarchist reminiscing about the good old days of Austria-Hungary and did this to tease us.