Jana Kasalová: Waldvilla–Traum(a) - site-specific instalation, 2025

The artist has long focused in her work on land­scape, car­tog­ra­phy, and var­i­ous method­olo­gies for map­ping place, space, and time—tools that facil­i­tate ori­en­ta­tion not only in the phys­i­cal land­scape but also in his­to­ry and the spir­i­tu­al realm. A cen­tral theme of her explo­ration is the fate of the bor­der­lands and its inhab­i­tants. Through spe­cif­ic sto­ries, she uncov­ers the lay­ered, mul­ti­fac­eted iden­ti­ty of a giv­en local­i­ty, with mem­o­ry serv­ing as her key medium—an insep­a­ra­ble and deeply root­ed part of each of us.

The site-specific audio­vi­su­al work, sit­u­at­ed in the Lesní vila of Hein­rich von Liebieg (more com­mon­ly known to the pub­lic as Wolker’s Sana­to­ri­um), becomes a means of reveal­ing the genius loci and frag­ments of the col­lec­tive his­to­ry of its res­i­dents. The work evokes a near­ly Biedermeier-style remem­brance of the Liebieg fam­i­ly, whose pre­served cor­re­spon­dence regard­ing Emper­or Franz Joseph I.’s vis­it brings their sto­ry back into the aware­ness of the place. The revealed text restores a for­got­ten nar­ra­tive to the build­ing itself, help­ing co-create its iden­ti­ty through the redis­cov­ery of old stories.

With a sen­si­tive artis­tic hand, the artist cre­ates an instal­la­tion in the raw, aban­doned build­ing, using del­i­cate pig­ment, untreat­ed wood, and authen­tic sound record­ings. In this envi­ron­ment marked by a bit­ter­sweet his­to­ry, a sub­tle yet objec­tive­ly dis­tanced reflec­tion of the place emerges, whose iden­ti­ty has been lay­ered, sup­pressed, and for­got­ten over decades. The build­ing itself has under­gone dark stages in its existence—from a sum­mer res­i­dence of a local patron, to a con­va­les­cent home, an NSDAP head­quar­ters, a pul­monary sana­to­ri­um, and a children’s psy­chi­atric clin­ic, to its cur­rent state as a silent wit­ness to shift­ing his­to­ries. After the war, its func­tion and sig­nif­i­cance con­tin­ued to change until, in the 1990s, it became an aban­doned build­ing sur­round­ed by numer­ous local leg­ends. Through her inter­ven­tion, the artist sym­bol­i­cal­ly restores a lost frag­ment to the place—not only mate­ri­al­ly but, most impor­tant­ly, in terms of memory.

Vis­i­tors enter the space at their own risk. The vil­la is not nor­mal­ly open to the pub­lic. Entry is not rec­om­mend­ed for chil­dren under 15. Stur­dy footwear is advised.