The twin cities of Ústí nad Labem and Chemnitz have a lot in common. Both cities are located outside the main centres, have undergone rapid industrialisation and equally rapid decline, are associated with a difficult transformation phase and are often met with prejudice from outside. It is precisely for this reason that we have planned a trip to Ústí as part of the Chemnitz Utopia project.
The artist Pavel Karous, who has long been involved with public art from the socialist era, documents sculptures, reliefs and other objects from the second half of the 20th century under the name Aliens and Herons, which are usually overlooked, considered unimportant or even regarded as unwanted remnants of the past. Karous, however, knows how to place them in a wider context - he shows how they were created, why they look the way they do, and what questions they raise today.
The walk is not only about visual art, but also about the changes in public space and what is reflected in it: what ideas about society, work or the future. And also about why utopias today seem more like the past than a possibility.
The walk is part of the larger project Chemnitz Utopia, which asks where all the emancipatory and utopian projects of modernity have gone - and why we often believe today that there is "no alternative". The theme of transformation - the upheaval of the societies of the Eastern Bloc, which was often associated with new lack of freedom, insecurity and the loss of voice - resonates in each of these concrete constructions. Our aim is not nostalgia, but reinterpretation.
The tour is in Czech and will be translated into German. For those interested from Chemnitz, the return journey will be organised, prior registration is required.
