Out of Sight: Social & Architectural Camouflage [artist talk]

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Curated in collaboration with Eva Slabá, the evening brings together four artists: Lukáš Šmejkal, Anna Černíková, Norbert Kuki and Salma Jamal Moushum. All four are united by an interest in the tension between visible surface and hidden interior, the theme of social and architectural camouflage, and the uncovering of systems that remain hidden from ordinary view.

Šmejkal's and Moushum’s artist talks, Černíková's sound performance, and a screening of Kuki's latest film will lead into an informal gathering in Czech Center New York. This themed evening puts into dialogue four artistic approaches exploring what happens beneath the surface – whether that's building façades, the façades of social norms, or institutional prejudice. While Šmejkal deconstructs the technical infrastructure hidden behind the walls of residential buildings, Moushum illuminates how community art and indigenous ecological knowledge subvert institutional prejudice, Černíková seeks an inner space of freedom through daydreaming in a hyper-capitalist city, and Kuki uncovers authentic, non-fetishized stories of Roma identity from within the community.

Program

6:30–7:30 PM | Artist Talks: Lukáš Šmejkal and Salma Jamal Moushum

Painter Lukáš Šmejkal will present his research focusing on urban infrastructure and architectural camouflage in New York. He will discuss the tension between the city’s aesthetic surface and its hidden technological core. He will also present the results of his field research, which focused on specific architectural phenomena such as 58 Joralemon Street (the facade of a residential building), Bruckner Boulevard (a mock-up for electrical substations) and the Strecker Laboratory (the use of a historic monument to house a metro transformer).

Salma Jamal Moushum will introduce the practice of Gidree Bawlee Foundation of Arts, a community-based arts organization working in the village of Balia in northern Bangladesh since 2001. Through a talk accompanied by short film excerpts, she will talk about Gidree Bawlee’s long-term, collaborative approach to artmaking with local communities, bringing contemporary artistic processes into conversation with ecological knowledge, oral traditions, craft, performance, and everyday rural life. She will also discuss her recent project Shak Pitari (Wild Leaves), created with women and young people in Balia around the disappearing knowledge of uncultivated edible plants.

7:30–8:05 PM | Film Screening: Štefi, Ten Days of Freedom
Norbert Kuki / 2025 / 33 min.

Norbert Kuki will present his latest audiovisual documentary work Štefi, Ten Days of Freedom. The documentary tells the story of a prisoner who stood out for his musical talent. As the documentary unfolds, Stefi gradually opens up and shares his personal story, revealing how he became a victim of a dysfunctional system and exploring the lasting scars it has left on him.

8:30 PM | Sound Performance by Anna Černíková & Gathering

Bohemian National Hall will become a space for two distinct but thematically connected explorations of inner worlds and hidden identity.
Anna Černíková (performing under the pseudonym A/C) will present a sound performance based on her New York project Daydream Nation. Sound collage and lo-fi aesthetics offer a moment of pause from constant digital stimulation, opening a space for daydreaming.

Presented by the Czech Center New York, the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM), Flux Factory, and Residency Unlimited.