The first exhibition of 2024 at 45 000 l was one of three selected projects from the international Open Call 2023, held last fall under the auspices of the Faculty of Architecture at Brno University of Technology. The exhibition Dirt is s Social Construct from artist and curator Barbora Ilič, focused on the aesthetics of urban patina and visual smog, using the city of Brno as an example. The video, set against a narrated personal story, contextualizes individual motifs from Brno’s overlooked and empty locations—so-called "non-places," which, according to French anthropologist Marc Augé, are places we cannot identify with or feel sympathy for. A related program, the "Liminal Feast," was created in collaboration with Jarmila Červená as part of Brno Artweek 2024. More information about the exhibition is available in a review by Sofie Gjuričová, published on the 4AM platform.

The second project, selected through the Open Call, was the "The Higgledy-piggledy Display Window" exhibition by the Girlscanscan collective. This project by the Hungarian collective of architects Girlscanscan offered a reflection on the profession of window dressers and decorators, currently on the verge of extinction, through a site-specific installation in a shop window. The exhibition highlighted these professions as phenomena with feminist overtones. It posed questions about the significance of the shop window in the 21st century, in a post-socialist city, where our phones, through algorithms, dictate what we should buy with just a touch. The window dressers and decorators of socialism defined the interface between private and public spaces and co-shaped consumerism in an economy of scarcity. The exhibition explored how urban permeability and livability could be improved through changes in the use of ground floors of buildings—through art, care, and non-consumer solutions, while avoiding gentrification as a consequence of these changes. You can follow the Girlscanscan collective on Tumblr.

The third exhibition of the season will open this Thursday, August 1, 2024. The installation by the Diskursiv collective, titled "Interconnected," will present a conceptual approach where architecture is not merely an exhibition artifact but, together with visitors, becomes the main actor. The exhibition space will be transformed into a complex environment that can be entered, blurring the boundaries between "inside" and "outside." Through small interventions in the existing architecture, its individual elements and the format of the architectural exhibition itself will be questioned. The Diskursiv collective (Julian Brües, Adna Babahmetović, Ajna Babahmetović, Michael Hafner, Katharina Hohenwarter, Philipp Sternath) was founded in 2021 in Graz, where they initiated a series of symposia with accompanying exhibitions, archived in two published books titled "Models" and "Colors," focusing on architectural problems that need to be addressed in an interdisciplinary framework.

What's Next? Stay tuned to the Instagram and Facebook pages of Gallery 45,000 l, where records of past exhibitions and upcoming projects are regularly published.