The construction fence, as a symbol of construction, defines the area of an average Prague apartment - for its rent, Prague residents pay an average of 25,000 crowns, for the purchase of 25 average annual salaries, which is the highest in Europe. Although the right to housing is enshrined in a number of international conventions, housing costs are rising worldwide and for many people housing is unaffordable - for example, a quarter of Czech households pay more than 40% of their total income for housing.
"The exhibition is deliberately not devoted to expert discussion, but presents Czech initiatives and artistic or protest actions that draw attention to housing problems and seek to improve housing affordability. The actors of these initiatives often have personal experience with the impact of rising housing prices - they do not have adequate housing or are threatened with its loss and are waging their struggles at the expense of their own time and resources," says curator Karolína Plášková about the exhibition.
The exhibition presents, for example, the activities of the We Want to Live! initiative, which helped the residents of a Brno residential hotel in their emancipatory struggle against a poverty trader. The artistic and activist collective Jezevky has already drawn attention to the housing crisis in several happenings, for example, they built an unstable house of cards at the Ministry of Regional Development as a symbol of the dysfunctional foundations of Czech housing policy. Together with the sculptor Pavel Karous, they also pushed a battering ram onto Mariánské náměstí, where they symbolically broke through the gate of the Prague City Hall to draw attention to the neglect of the needs of citizens. Multimedia artist Vladimír Turner is presenting his installation Master Lock, which responds to the problematic phenomenon of using apartments for short-term rentals to tourists.
The exhibition includes artworks, documentary videos, as well as tents and deck chairs. Why? Come and see the exhibition.
The Right to Housing Exhibition
Galerie Jaroslava Fragnera, Betlémské náměstí 5a, Praha 1
duration: 20. prosince 2023 – 10. března 2024
opening hours: wednesday – sunday, 14:00–19:00
free adminttance
curator: Karolína Plášková
presented authors and initiative: Chceme bydlet!, Jezevky, Kuncovka, Pavel Karous, Platforma pro sociální bydlení, Vladimír Turner
production: Václav Suchan
The founder of the Jaroslav Fragner Gallery is Czech Technical University in Prague. The exhibition and its accompanying programme are supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the City of Prague, the Czech Architecture Foundation and the Art Reuse Centre.