4 October – 1 November 2026
Kiscell Museum, Church Hall, Kiscelli u. 108, Budapest, Hungary
UMPRUM students Vavřinec Doubek, Jan Cestr (FAMU exchange student), and Lukáš Skála from Studio Photography II, and Eliška Gogolová from Studio Textile, took part in the international juried exhibition Design Without Borders in Budapest. The joint project Silver Plate by Vavřinec Doubek and Jan Cestr received the Design Without Borders Award in the Photography category, supported by the Czech Centre in Vienna.
Photo: Marian Hromek
The Design Without Borders (DWB) Festival exhibition focuses on design, photography, and all forms of art and is curated through a selection process. The theme of this year’s 22nd edition is photography and the celebration of 200 years since its invention. This theme also guided the selection of works.
The award-winning joint work Silver Plate by Vavřinec Doubek and Jan Cestr (FAMU exchange student) was created using 40 litres of used photographic fixer collected over three years of operating the UMPRUM darkroom. Using electrolysis, the artists silver-plated a steel plate measuring 50 × 60 cm. The silver that once formed the photographic negatives loses its original shapes and creates an abstract collage. The resulting object also serves as a monument to all those involved in the journey of silver from the mines.
Lukáš Skála’s Ant creates an installation from Polaroid photographs. The series presents a visual metaphor for the creative process as well as for the way we perceive reality.
Eliška Gogolová’s textile panel New Scene was created in response to the DWB assignment to connect a photograph of Prague architecture with textile material and music by pre-selected composers. The author perceives the glass blocks by Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský as a façade that, through light and human movement, transforms into a stage, curtain, or costume. She expanded the architecture of the New Stage with her own woven textile collage and Ivan Buffa’s Trio (2003) for flute, clarinet, and cello. Together, these elements create an external Laterna Magika: a form of multimedia architecture in which glass, textiles, music, light, and movement become interconnected layers of a single spatial composition.
In addition to the exhibition, Eliška Gogolová also presented her work as part of the Professional Day.
