Flower Union

Curated by Michal Novotný (National Gallery, Prague, Czechia)

At Council of the EU, Brussels,BE

July 7 — December 31, 2022  

As well as the continuation of this project presented at National Gallery, Prague

February 2 - May 7, 2023

Valentýna Janů, Overall Office, Barbora Fastrová, Jakub Choma, Jakub Jansa, Johana Posová, Martin Kohout, Jan Broz


“The people of Europe can convert their vision into reality only if they feel linked and motivated by what I would call a European consciousness. A profound awareness that they are all Europeans together. A deep feeling of unity, albeit unity in diversity. A profound awareness of their thousand-year-old common history and spiritual tradition. Europe is made up mainly of small nations, whose history is mutually linked by thousands of threads which together form the finished fabric.”
Václav Havel, acceptance speech after receiving the Erasmus Prize, March 1986

As a part of this year’s Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, nine young Czech artists and designers created decorations for two buildings in Brussels. These artists decided to use their work to express the values that the European Union embodies for them and which they believe it should continue to embody in the future. They also tried to highlight the idea of Europeanism rather than to simply present the Czech Republic as one of the member states. Their collective project, as well as their individual endeavours, are linked by the concept of a community of plants sharing a single piece of soil, thus also stressing the environmental agenda, which will reverberate strongly during the Czech Presidency.


For more visit: https://www.ngprague.cz/en/event/3394/The-Flower-Union


Non-accidental connections

Jakub Choma, finds the entry point of his inspiration in the motif of "meeting stone", which is a virtual monolithic object from a well-known computer game. Players use it to teleport their virtual "selfs" as well as those of their peers to specific locations in the game space by "summoning" their “clan”. Choma uses the motif as an allegory for the formation and need for a collective. This translates not only into the idea of the European Union and the collective of the artists of the Flower Union project, but also into the collective of mutually unknown visitors who meet in a place that serves as a waiting area before one is being picked up by a council employee.

On this basis, Choma further reflects on the theme of the relationship between humans and physical objects, object that form a base, a platform for encounters, creating shared situations. The whole European Council building is such an object. The work is thus not just interactive art, but ideally a point providing a space for non-committal human communication, a shared admiration or a pause in reflection on a shared theme.

Meeting stone is physically a vertical mass of superhuman size, exceeding the estimated height of the average visitor. It has several layers and is partially made of natural cork. The surrounding objects - a library, an information kiosk and seating benches, which were created in collaboration with Tomas Kocka Jusko and Alex Selmeci, link and morph factual information about the exhibition, images from the process of its creation and random images in different materials and forms - reflecting on their surface a collage that represents the concept of the exhibition. Throughout the installation, Choma works with the metaphor of sprouting and growing through surfaces, cracks and joints, yet again reflecting political engagement as well as an appeal to conscience.

This is also reflected in the benches, which take the form of a fold potentially catching small items that have fallen out of pockets. At the same time, the fold resembles the germ of a seed rising from the soil. A motif that also appears on the surface of the other itinerary.

The last work is a relief placed in the room next to the presidential lounge. It again incorporates the various motifs of the presentation, the sunflower referring to the need not to forget the Ukrainian war conflict, the pictogram of the whisper and the shape of the ear, as well as the motif of the deliberately dingy shirt cuff as a formal requisite of political relations. The object oscillates between the strength of the emblem and the fragility and impermanence of the material, emphasized by the use of seeds and feathers.