The Slovak exhibition “The Absence of Miracles Exhausts Us” balances on the edge of installation and performance and was inspired by the theatre project Miracles, which took place in the Central Slovak village Bátovce in 2017. It was a unique interconnection of four ensembles (Pôtoň Theatre, Debris Company, the Honey and Dust group and Sláva Daubnerová) in one common performance done at night in the countryside, drawing on the tradition of intense conceptual action art of the 1960s. The essence of this tradition was an attempt to delineate what personal freedom meant in society, history, urban space, open country. 

The Slovak pavilion PQ 2019 was created as a continuation of this project and as an experimental transfer of the essence of the production from the open night landscape to the Prague Holešovice Exhibition Grounds, in close collaboration with the stage designer Juraj Poliak, co-author of the Miracles project.

The pavilion aimed at returning the visitor to the night atmosphere of the performance, and after its short visit in Prague, the pavilion will itself return to the village of Bátovce. 

Project name: Slovak pavilion at Prague Quadrennial 2019

Client: Theatre Institute Bratislava, Ministry of Culture of Slovak Republic

Location: Prague Exhibition Grounds Holešovice

Program: National exhibition pavilion

Size: 25m2

Status: completed 2019

Curatorial team: Rastislav Ballek, Jozef Vlk, Jozef Ciller, Viera Burešová

Scenographer and artist: Juraj Poliak

Architects: Chybik+Kristof 

Project team: Ondřej Chybík, Michal Krištof, Peter Chaban, Maroš Kostelanský, Kristína Berecová, Zoltán Takács

Photography: alex shoots buildings