"Homophobia has definitely not disappeared from the Czech environment," says Bronislav Stratil, the architect of the Tělák exhibition. The new exhibition at the Museum of Prague takes visitors back to school locker rooms and their own insecurities
Enter the school locker room, where instead of laughter, there are personal confessions of shame, insecurity or the search for one's own identity. The exhibition Tělák, presented this spring by the Museum of Prague, is not a classical exhibition, but an immersive experience on the border between theatre and installation. It draws visitors into an environment that most of us know well - the gym, the locker room or the school corridors, and through authentic stories it opens up the themes of growing up, physicality and the pressures of the environment.
Bronislav Stratil, an award-winning architect who has worked with the museum on previous projects, contributed to the architectural and scenographic design of the project. It is his work that is behind the distinctive visual and spatial design of the exhibition, which works with discomfort, enlarged scale and fragments of familiar environments to evoke a strong emotional response in visitors.
How was the concept for the exhibition developed, why was the title born during the course of the work, or how does today's school environment still shape our perception of the body and identity? In the interview Bronislav Stratil describes not only the background of the project's creation, but also his own experiences that have been reflected in it.
Where did the inspiration for the exhibition Body actually come from?
The origins of the project go back to a time when it had neither a name nor a clear form. Tereza Kadlecová from Prague Pride approached me with the initial idea as part of a grant project. It was clear from the beginning that we would be working with a limited budget, so we were looking for ways to make the topic as visible as possible, even though the initial idea was more of a smaller intervention or intimate exhibition.
However, the ambitions gradually grew. Together we looked for the most effective way to bring the theme to a wider audience. Gender diversity, human otherness and the pressure of social expectations to which we have been exposed since childhood became key themes. We were interested in how individuals try to fit their own identities into these frameworks - and how challenging this process actually is for many people.
The project took approximately three years to develop. We searched for a suitable partner, adequate spaces and an overall format that could carry the theme. It took a long time to find the ideal solution, until finally it turned out to be crucial to approach the Museum of Prague.
And how did the name Tělák come about?
The search for a name was a gradual process that evolved along with the whole project. As the team expanded - from architects and set designers to audiovisual artists, graphic designers and illustrators - the thematic anchor of the exhibition was also refined. One of the initial impulses was the desire to work with the school environment and to mine its archetypal spaces, such as locker rooms or the gym, which carry strong social and personal experiences.
A crucial moment came when Janek Růžička joined the project. He proposed to narrow the theme and focus it directly on the body and physicality as the key framework of the whole exhibition. It was at this stage that the name Tělák was born, which suddenly gave the project a clearer direction and a comprehensible identity.
A lot of people have rather negative memories associated with PE, don't they?
Exactly. Gymnastics is an experience that almost everyone shares, and that's why it carries a strong emotional charge - often negative or even traumatic. In that sense, we saw it as a universal experience that can naturally connect audiences across generations and experiences.
At the same time, it was important for me to step out of a purely LGBT context and show that the themes of identity, physicality and societal expectations are not just about one group. It affects both young people going through the process of self-identification and older generations who can play a key role in supporting their children today.
The exhibition is very interactive. Was that the intention?
Yes, but not in the traditional sense. We were not aiming for interactivity based on control or "playing" with the exhibits. We see it more as the ability of the space to draw the visitor in - to make them listen, feel and physically move through an environment that evokes specific emotions.
The result is an immersive installation inspired by the school environment - from changing rooms and toilets to fragments of rooms or living spaces. We have worked with elements of discomfort, confinement, darkness and deliberately enlarged scale to enhance feelings of insecurity and vulnerability.
Within this framework, we set authentic stories of specific people, processed through audiovisual elements. In this way, the exhibition does not feel like a classic exhibition, but rather a complex, intense emotional experience.
How challenging was it to collect the stories of individual people? How did you go about it?
Sodja Lotker was the main dramaturge and librettist. The springboard was the sociological research Being LGBTQ in the Czech Republic by Michal Pitoňák and Marcela Macháčková. Sodja also brought her own experiences and stories of her daughter. Gradually, other team members joined in, sharing their own experiences, recommending other projects and literature, or interviewing friends and acquaintances. We had to look harder for more positive stories, for example the participants of the #buďteslyšet project from Prague Pride helped us.
Gradually we gathered a lot of material. It turned out that the stories often repeated themselves in similar patterns, so we divided them into thematic groups.
Then came the very careful work of selecting, sorting and putting them into a compact whole. There were a lot of stories, but we needed to create something that was both comprehensible and powerful.
Who is the exhibition primarily for? You mentioned that it's mainstream, but does it have a specific target audience?
The ambition was to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, which is in keeping with the institutional background of the Museum of Prague, where you naturally meet a very diverse range of visitors. At the same time, it is obvious that the topic itself will resonate more intensely with a certain part of society.
The primary target group is therefore young people - roughly from puberty onwards, i.e. from the age of 13 upwards, with an emphasis on high school students. It is precisely among them that the exhibition has the greatest potential to open up topics that are often unnamed, and at the same time create a space for their reflection.
At the same time, we see a lot of school groups here today. Do you think this can help young people in how they perceive their surroundings and the differences between their classmates?
We think the impact of the exhibition can be really significant - not only on the primary target group, but in a broader context on society as a whole. Ideally, it can act as a formative tool that can be further worked with.
An important role in this respect is played by accompanying lecturer programmes, in which groups are accompanied by experts who are able to place individual topics in a broader context and help with their interpretation. It is this element that greatly enhances the overall benefit of the visit.
Conversely, if a school group visits the exhibition without guidance, the effect may be more limited. Children often behave differently in a group setting, are subject to the dynamics of the collective and may not be as open to individual experience. It is therefore also important to consider sensitively the age of the visitors and the way in which they experience the exhibition. Older second graders, such as eighth and ninth graders, or high school students seem to be the most appropriate.
To what extent do you think today's school environment still reproduces gender stereotypes? Is it different from 20 years ago?
It is tempting to say that the situation has not shifted much, but it is not that clear-cut. Regional differences play an important role - while in larger cities such as Prague the approach to these issues is changing faster, in smaller towns or rural areas the development often remains slower.
A fundamental change is undoubtedly the availability of information. Today's generation has significantly more opportunities to encounter and explore issues of identity, gender and diversity independently. Yet I feel that education as a system is still lagging behind in many respects. Compared to forty years ago, the shift is noticeable, but in the current context it is insufficient. Many structures and patterns persist and continue to reproduce stereotypes that can have a negative impact not only on individuals but on society as a whole.
From an architectural point of view, the exhibition works with an enlarged scale. How does this affect the perception of space?
This is a question best answered by the visitors themselves, but the intention was quite clear. Working with an enlarged scale is one of the key scenographic tools to evoke a sense of discomfort and uncertainty.
The moment one finds oneself in a space that feels oversized or unattainable, one's own perception naturally changes - one may feel smaller, more vulnerable, tend to withdraw or seek shelter. It is these emotions that we have consciously worked with.
The exhibition has been open for a relatively short time, so we are still collecting feedback. But the reactions so far suggest that this principle works and that visitors perceive it as a strong and effective scenographic element.
How long does it take to set up and build such an exhibition in the first place? It's probably quite a demanding process.
In this case, the whole process was significantly longer, mainly because of the search for a suitable partner and the limited conditions, especially financial ones. The preparatory phase took about two years, during which the concept, the team and the exhibition itself gradually took shape.
And the actual realization of the objects?
That is a separate and no less complex stage. It begins with the creation of detailed tender documentation, which then enters the tender for the contractor. In our case, the process was made even more challenging by the fact that some elements could not be asked for as standard - for example, the mannequins, which function more like original art objects, and thus required collaboration with specialist artists.
The actual realisation of an exhibition of this scale then usually takes around six months to a year. The ideal scenario envisages a six-month schedule, but in practice a number of parallel processes have to be coordinated - from the audiovisual component to the production of the art installations to the actual construction. This does not just mean the installation of individual elements, but the creation of a complex scenographic environment that must function as a whole.
I was intrigued by the fact that foreign museums have expressed interest in the project, which is not entirely common in the Czech environment. What do you explain that the exhibition gained attention so quickly? Have you already agreed on anything?
At the moment we are still in the negotiation phase. It would be a collaboration between the Museum of Prague and the National Art Museum in Riga as part of the theatre festival there.
We believe that the key factor is the topic itself, which is extremely topical and resonates strongly today - especially in Central and Eastern Europe. In fact, societies in this region have not undergone such a linear development as, for example, Germany or France, where the public debate on these issues has moved on a bit further.
The view from abroad is also interesting - for example, Tadeáš Říha, a colleague and co-author of the installation from London, points out that the exhibition would probably not have such a strong impact there, because society has already worked out similar issues to a large extent. That is why we expect the greatest interest to come from our region.
Have you seen any negative reactions due to the theme of the exhibition?
We were honestly surprised that there were virtually no major negative reactions. We had some concerns - also in view of the experience of Prague Pride, which has faced criticism in the past. We had anticipated that the exhibition might become the target of similar reactions.
The Museum of Prague was also cautious in this regard. In the end, however, no major conflict took place. One of the reasons may be the chosen framework - we set the topic in the context of PE, which is universally understandable for most visitors and allows them to enter into complex issues in a more natural and less confrontational way.
A slightly more personal question - what was PE like for you when you think back to your school years?
I would say I was somewhere in the middle. I liked PE in principle, but at the same time I was gradually finding a relationship with specific sports. Team sports, for example, never quite grew on me, although I was able to enjoy them.
In general, I found the school environment rather inspiring and motivating. I went through selective classes and schools, which was beneficial to me. However, even this did not protect me from the experience of some pretty severe bullying that I went through during my studies.
Have you personally encountered homophobia? And do you think that today's school environment has changed in this respect? Or again, does it depend on the region?
I don't have a completely clear answer to this - ideally, I would like to rely on concrete data, for example from Prague Pride or other organisations that have been working on the issue for a long time.
Personally, I want to believe that the situation is gradually improving. However, the discussions we had during the preparation of the exhibition show that homophobia has definitely not disappeared from the Czech environment. Moreover, it is not developing in a linear fashion - it is not as if it is gradually diminishing. Rather, it moves in waves.
I have the impression that it is currently growing again. LGBT issues are becoming highly polarizing again, and sometimes it's surprising how harsh the reactions can be, even from younger generations. In a collective setting, these attitudes are then easily reinforced - and can manifest themselves in a dismissive or hurtful way, even when visiting similar cultural projects.
If you were to lure someone to an exhibition who hadn't seen it yet, what would you say to them?
I would say that this is an exhibition in which everyone can really find themselves. Whether they have been on the side of those who have been hurt in the past or, conversely, on the side of those who have - consciously or unconsciously - hurt others.
We know from the reactions of visitors that the exhibition can have a powerful impact. For some, it makes them retrospectively aware of their own behaviour and the role they played in an environment that may have been unpleasant or painful for others.
