Already on Monday, October 9, Signal Festival will enter its second decade and start a week-long festival program including events of the off program.
We’ll be shining on the outskirts of Prague
For the first time ever, we will extend the light beyond the main festival routes. At Bořislavka, Letná and Rustonka we will present the Satellites – a trio of permanent artworks in public space by Federico Díaz, Jiří Příhoda and Zdeněk Sýkora, which will be enlivened by light and sound projections. With the Satellites we want to draw attention to existing works that we consider to be of high quality and we would like to show them to visitors in a new light. Patrons of the installations are KKCG, KKFF, Aricoma, Bořislavka Centrum and White Star Real Estate.
13 installations accessible for free
From the very beginning we have been trying to bring the best of contemporary art to all our visitors, which is why this year part of the festival programme is free. In the free installations we will present several prominent Czech artists, led by Jan Kaláb, whose sculptural installation Irideus Bulla will play a game of perspective and colour, or Dagmar Šubrtová, whose installation Axis Mundi will literally fill the Old Town Square. This year we will present two popular video installations – Hungarian artist András László Nagy will light up the building of the Municipal Library on Mariánské náměstí and the iconic Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius on Karlínské náměstí will be brought to life by the Japanese studio Flightgraf.
Welcoming the whole family
We also think of our youngest visitors. This year, we will present the first ever interactive installation designed specifically for children by the Czech studio 3dsense called Signal Playground:Rainbow. Families with children can also explore other festival installations, such as a large-scale projection by Norwegian-Portuguese studio Entangled Others or the monumental installation Kaluže by designer Václav Mlynář.
Supporting young art
We have been supporting young Czech artists and artist collectives for a long time. One of the projects is the Neon Prize, which we award to students and graduates of secondary and higher art schools with the support of Pražská Plynárenská. The winner of the third edition of the competition was Karim Tarakji with his project Red Shift, which will be on display at Kaizl Gardens during the festival. Another project is the open call Signal Calling, organized for the fourth year in collaboration with PrusaLab, Josef Prusa’s prototype workshop, which provides artists with the necessary facilities, materials and experience without which the winning installations could not be created. The winners of this year’s open call were artists Lukáš Dřevjaný, Luboš Zbranek, David Minařík and Michal Mitro with an original system called Nexus.
We are open and wheelchair accessible
We strive to be accessible to all visitors without discrimination, which is why this year most of the installations in the festival programme will be wheelchair accessible. An important pillar of the festival is the effort to draw attention to pressing social issues, which is why this year we are continuing our cooperation with the ČEZ Group and will support the Czech Paralympic Team as part of the ČEZ Foundation’s Pomáhejte pohybem initiative. Everyone can join the initiative. Just download the EPP Pomáhejte pohybem app for iOS or Android for free and contribute to the selected project by moving around the festival routes.