A short review of the exhibitions of the Terezín Memorial Education Dept.

In order to prevent the works of winners of the Terezín Memorial student contests from gathering dust somewhere in storage, our Education Department prepared a travelling exhibition, in cooperation with partner institutions. The exhibition areas of these institutions usually allow for placement of up to 30 works, and an exhibition lasts a month on average. We have now prepared a list of installations from the years 2009 through January 2011 for your reading pleasure. The exhibition titles are derived from themes set for the contests organized annually by the Terezín Memorial Education Department.

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Between March 2009 and January 2011, the most frequent collaborator was the Parish council of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren led by its priest, Marián Šusták, making their homely premises a temporary home for the works by pupils and students, starting from the spring of 2009. The first exhibition produced had pictures by winners of the “What will the 21st century be like?” contest, complete with a Q&A session with employees of the Terezín Memorial Education Department. The exhibition was met with a positive response, leading to another one, this one with works from the 2008 contest, “The way they saw and continue to see the world”, held in October 2009. The opening night featured a concert of evangelical singer/songwriter Slávek Klecandr of the folk group Oboroh from Eastern Bohemia, who performed mostly blues versions of Old Testament psalms. The third exhibition took place at the beginning of 2010, under the title “War and I”. Slávek Klecandr once again performed on the opening night.

Teplice

Similarly well established is our co-operation with the Jewish community of Teplice, which dates back to 2000. In the given two-year period, it first hosted the exhibition “The way they saw and continue to see the world” in September, 2009. The opening night was attended by a former prisoner of the Terezín ghetto, Marta Kottová. A year later, in September 2010, further works of art were displayed as a part of the “War and I” exhibition.

The Educational and Cultural Centre of the Jewish Museum in Prague

The co-operation with the Educational and Cultural Centre of the Jewish Museum in Prague has also become a tradition. The seminar rooms of the museum hosted the “The way they saw and continue to see the world” exhibition from May through August 2010. The opening night of the exhibition featured a performance by MAKABARA, a trio of female singers who perform Hebrew songs.

Louny

In July 2009, there was an exhibition called “What will the 21st century be like?” in the hotel Barokní špitál in Louny. The opening was attended by the deputy mayor of Louny, Jan Čermák. Once again, there was also a musical number. This time it came from a composer of electro-acoustic classical music, the ethnomusicologist and associate professor Vlastislav Matoušek of the Charles University in Prague’s Faculty of Arts. He performed a classical old Japanese composition on a shakuhachi flute and a new experimental composition (based on an Old Testament text from Jeremiah) The Path of the Prophet. The reach of Terezín Memorial exhibitions was further extended by establishing new contacts with the Public Library of Louny. The first exhibition was “The way they saw and continue to see the world” in the winter of 2010. The new library building then hosted works from the “My picture of the 20th century” contest, with a closing ceremony on 26 October 2010, complete with a presentation of the new book by Antonín Hluštík (attended by the author himself and the mayor of Louny, Jan Kerner), “Abychom nezapomínali” (Lest We Forget), which completes the author’s research in history of the Jews of Louny in the 19th and 20th century in popular science form.

Further exhibitions…

V The V. Štech Library in Slaný had an exhibition called “The way they saw and continue to see the world”. The opening took place at the end of July 2009 with attendance from  the deputy mayor Pavel Bartoníček and Klára Floriánová, the winner of the 2nd category of the XIII annual edition of the Terezín Memorial art contest. The foyer of the Litoměřice cinema Máj held the exhibition “The way they saw and continue to see the world” in the summer of 2009. The opening featured a performance from Vlastislav Matoušek who performed on a Renaissance type of bagpipe, the so-called “moldánky”, playing folk ballads in a very authentic manner. The exhibition was also visited by the evangelical priest, a supporter of the original Charter 77 movement and the former Litoměřice senator, Zdeněk Bárta. The K. H. Mácha Library in Litoměřice hosted the exhibition “What will the 21st century be like?” in the spring of 2010, with the opening attended by the deputy mayor of Litoměřice, Jiří Landa and with a performance from the flute ensemble Oethos of the Secondary School for Pedagogy of J. H. Pestalozzi in Litoměřice. The Regional Museum of K. A. Polánek in Žatec hosted the exhibition “The way they saw and continue to see the world” in the autumn of 2010.

The latest exhibition so far was the one from the “War and I” contest, hosted by OKA*MŽIK multifunctional centre of Diaconia, a charity of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Litoměřice. The exhibition was held from  6 January until 9 February 2011, with the opening featuring a debate on klezmer music – the Ashkhenazic Jewish music of the Eastern European region. The debate was hosted by a pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Jan Matoušek, the topic of the day was covered by Pavel Straka of the Terezín Memorial, who also presented several examples from his musical and film archive.

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