On Thursday, 3 April, the advertising spaces in the West Bohemian town of Stříbro were flooded with photographs by Lukáš Houdek from his 2011 "Theory of Adaptability" (Teorie přizpůsobivosti) cycle. In an extremely straightforward, witty way, the photographs spotlight the widespread use of the term "inadaptable", which is currently popular among the Czech media and politicians.
The posters ask passers-by whether they themselves are also "inadaptable" and recommend visiting the website www.teorie-prizpusobivosti.cz to register their own "inadaptability". Visitors to the website can use an application to create a photograph of themselves and add a personal message about how they too are "inadaptable".
"The project is conceived as a platform for those who want to express their support for the people who are now being labeled this way at every turn. This same term was used by the Nazis during the Third Reich. The project reflects on the meaning of the word, what it basically means to be ‘inadaptable’, and whether it is actually a negative characteristic," Houdek says.
"Passers-by and visitors to the website have the opportunity to think about the question of whether they actually even want to adapt, whether they want to merge with the crowd and become one of the grey masses," the photographer adds. During the first two days after the launch of the website almost 200 people have created their own "inadaptable" photographs and 500 have shared the application through online social networks.
Houdek’s publicly-displayed photographs in Stříbro will be followed by similar photographs taken by students at the academic high school there who, just like the visitors to the website, will use photography to make a statement about their own "inadaptability". Those images will then be displayed on the classic poster spaces throughout the town.
This artistic intervention is part of a project of the same name which has been running since last August with the support of the Czech-German Fund for the Future and the OSF’s Open Society NGO (Otevřená společnost, o.p.s.). During the past six months the project has worked with students at two schools in Děčín and Stříbro through intensive workshops.
Students have had the opportunity to meet former neo-Nazis, to work on their own prejudices, and to reflect on their own positions through art in order to internalize the topic. In Děčín the students will work with multimedia artist Tamara Moyzes, who will produce an event together with them in a public space that will be a cross between "living statues" and a performance piece; in both towns these artistic interventions will be followed by public debates with citizens about their local situation including representatives of the municipalities, the Office of the Czech Government, and Romani people.
