This years AFO is also accompanied by exhibitions at the Museum of Art

NEWS: 27 04 2023 

The traditional connection between the Museum of Art and AFO continues this year, in addition to the SEFO enclosure, which is currently presenting AFO, we have prepared an exhibition project Blind Spot for festival visitors, which they can see in the MUO screens and in our windows.

The term “blind spot” comes from ophthalmology and refers to a small area on the retina of the human eye where an image is formed. The blind spot prevents its integrity – part of it must always be invented, constructed, or imagined. This “little lie” underlying human perception is a good metaphor for our normal movement within society, learning, orienting, forming an opinion, and sharing it. The FORUM programme line-up features a trio of prominent Central European personalities who have been working on shared social blind spots for a long time – be it the consumption of media images, the formation of social rules, or the communication of personal dilemmas. At the same time, the project attempts to bridge another similar spot – opening the traditional state institution to the public space, its uncertainty, and hecticness – and awaits its own echo.

BLIND SPOT
25 04 2023–15 07 2023, Gallery 9:16

The title of Mykola Ridnyis work is borrowed from ophthalmology. A blind spot is a small area on the retina that prevents a complete image from its forming. Usually, we rely on our own knowledge and memory to complete it, without considering that we are constantly constructing reality as such. Ridnyi uses this concept as a metaphor for a society in a state of media war. He takes images from the media and news reporting on the war taking place in eastern Ukraine, intervenes manually, most often with black ink, and artificially re-constitutes the blind spot in them. This work is a critical statement about the mechanical acceptance of reality as established by the media and the social blindness imposed by war propaganda, which creates a polarised vision of reality, dividing society into “us” and “them”, “ours” and “theirs”. It is not for nothing that it is said that the first casualty of war is the truth – regardless of what we actually think it is.

WE’LL MEET AGAIN
25 04 2023–15 07 2023, Gallery 9:16, CEAD.space, windows

The project reflects on the intimate relationships of Yuriys family, which has long been divided due to his life in Poland. Naturally, they gained in intensity after the outbreak of war with Russia on 24 February 2022, all the more so as his younger brother is actively participating in it. The trio of chapters deals with the intercommunication of all family members. The first is dedicated to the brother – it is presented in a film entitled Write at Least Once a Day, in which the author reads from their correspondence. (CEAD.point) The second, entitled Homeland, reflects on Yuriys lifelong relationship with his father – and relies on a series of sensitively selected objects with which the authors memories and experiences are linked. (Gallery 9:16) The final chapter, My Mother‘s Photos, then presents a series of floral arrangements of Yuriys mother. (Windows) The intimacy and concentration of the messages contrast sharply with the absence of „real“ contact, making the dilemmas associated with personal emigration poignantly present.

More HERE