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In August 2023, OBJECT:PARADISE hosted its inaugural international language happening, co-curated with four collectives, featuring three events across two countries, all unified by a single manifesto. The weekend's events were filmed and later screened at venues throughout the Visegrad region, bringing together hundreds of creative individuals to explore not what poetry should be, but what it can be.
This project was funded by the Visegrad Fund, and our collective collaborated closely with neighboring Visegrad collectives: ARS LATRANS (Poland), ArtPortal (Hungary), and Slam Poetry SK (Slovakia).
On February 24th, we concluded the project with a final film screening in Krakow, Poland.
After four years of dedicated effort, we were thrilled to witness the culmination of this project and to immortalize it in our annual film, OBJECT:PRAHA IV.
In 2020, just a week before the onset of the COVID-19 lockdowns across Europe, Tyko Say and Sandra Pasławska met over espresso in Exarcheia, Greece. Although they had only met in person a few times before, they planned the first international OBJECT:PARADISE curation to take place in Krakow later that year. The concept featured an unstructured script of action, reading, sound, and performance designed to challenge and question the boundaries of a traditional poetry reading.
The envisioned event included a barista causing a ruckus on stage, interrupting with bursts of espresso in concert with readings; strangers from the street entering the room shouting, "we will not be moved"; slender vegan hotdog vendors navigating the audience, tossing wieners past shoulders; cross-dressers in masks cross-dressing as themselves; readers reciting red (un)instructions in bed; triumphant rusty trombones scorching the ceiling from balcony enclaves; and a revolving door swinging robustly ajar for non-poets to become poets.
This happening would never occur in this universe—but perhaps somewhere else, a man with a mouthful of hot dogs is ironing his hair and reading instructions on how to be oneself in front of a stage with his back turned towards a screaming, almost stranger, audience. It would never happen.
COVID struck in 2020/21/22, and the non-existent memories of this absent happening laid the groundwork for what would later occur in August 2023: Performance, Deformance, Reformance.
Between 2020 and 2023, the O:P collective evolved, taking on new projects—an album, a magazine, a collection of films, and installations—all with and for our local community. We thank all the Jan and Janas of our microcosm art scene. It was a time to celebrate closeness. We took trains, rode rails, and further planned the Krakow happening with our new team and newfound energy. We thank COVID for teaching us the importance of closeness (despite the frown, the smile, behind the mask).
In 2022, we set the venue to be at a video production house with open air, a glass hallway, and green screens. How could we replicate our new multimedia, television reality now in person that the mask was down? Well, we couldn't and we wouldn't. And we realized that transporting twenty 100kg TVs was expensive—both by national and private post.
In 2023, the International Visegrad Fund approved the curation for funding but suggested we make it bigger—so we did. We contacted our good friends in Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland to collaborate and expand the curation beyond hot dogs and espresso.
We decided to personally transport the TVs by train, bringing the closeness even closer.
From January to June 2023, the O:P team worked closely with Slam Poetry Slovakia, ARS LATRANS Poland, and Art Portal Hungary to curate a one-time language happening featuring over fifty actions of sound, language, performance, installation, and film. It was a time of excellence and Excel sheets.
On Thursday, August 24th, 2023, the four collectives gathered for the first time at Punctum in Žižkov, where we laid out the three questions our project aimed to answer:
- What is the function of performance in the sharing of poetry in the public space?
- How do the poet, the poem, and the context relate to each other? Is there a hierarchy?
- Does poetry exist? If so, what is it?
Over the next three days, the O:P collective, along with over 200 members of our Central European community, explored the nuances of these questions in OBJECT:PARADISE's most significant language happening yet.
Below, you can read about how the weekend transpired.