Collective Spodni 27

May 4, 2023
12 min read

Updated: May 18, 2023

We are a collective that lives or often stays in Jirská osada, on Spodní Street, in house no. 27.

We are open to our surroundings. We find it important and meaningful to break down prejudices and stereotypes about life in excluded localities. We play with local children on an irregular basis, take them on trips, record their raps, paint, cut paper shapes, build bunkers, read, braid children's hair, teach each other languages, cook, make videos. Children learn to take pictures, learn Romani dances.

"I think if you want to do social work you have to go and be with those people and learn from those people and not in school or in the office." - Zuzana Janeczková

We want to create art that is understood (and loved) by the public and at the same time we do not want to produce mass art. We don't want to create consumerist art, but participatory art. We do not want to tell what to do, but to communicate. Without people who are an undeniable part of the environment, it is impossible to create site-specific!

Finding Inspiration in Excluded Localities: The Journey of Spodní 27 Collective

What was the first thing in your life? Art making or social work.

Lucie:

The first is probably nothing. I simply study sculpture and do art in some way. What we do at Spodní street comes from living there. And they're such connected things for me.

Zuzana:

So first of all we live here and I work in the Low Threshold Centre, so at the moment social work comes first. I think It really neglected the creative side of me, and I've also realised recently that I don't want to do art that's not connected to social work. Apart from some drawing and writing. The social and the creative are totally intertwined for me.

I went to art school for a semester and somehow I wasn't inspired by it. It didn't make sense to me there, and I threw myself into a job that was originally in a diner, where served people with disabilities, and now I've been working at a low-threshold organization for six months. I run an art course and I still think of it as social work in a way.

Can you describe the first work you did that combined social issues with creative tools?

Lucie:

Gardening.

We moved to where we live now and it was just corona and everything shut down. We started meeting outside with the kids who live there and then we started making things because we had paints at home.

Later on we did a festival too. But that was by the time we knew at least some of the kids and adults here.

And I'm still wondering what motivated you to move to Spodní 27?

Zuzana:

We had been visiting this place intensively for some time before that, about a month after we moved in. Especially the apartment next door at a friend's place and we didn't want to go home and then the corona started. We started deciding whether we were going to stay at our former apartment or come here to see people. And then actually the friend said there's a vacant apartment next door, so why don't we move right in. And so we did.

Lucie:

We love it there. It's just such a background social location and there's one house where there's nice people that we're close to. That house has a specific history. It was renovated 10 years ago by some young white artists. But they don't live there anymore. But they needed someone to live in that house. So it's city housing. Before I moved there, I had no connection to the area other than a visual one. In my eyes, the Spodní 27 address was a house where there were more apartments, where everybody knew each other. And that was important to me, that it was just such a community to do things with. And by starting the corona. It turned out that with the people there you can make a home out of that whole settlement. Not just in the house itself.

That's great. Do you think if it wasn't for the covid, none of this would have happened?

Zuzana:

Absolutely. We didn't actually have to leave the site and go to work or school and we suddenly had an awful lot of time to get to know all the kids and get to know how things work here.

Lucie:

Especially the kids would just be at home. Actually, we were all just at home at the same time and it was getting warm, so we went outside. So I think it's a lot because of the metal that we met. And we had the same amount of time, we were always at home. And they would come over and we would do things with them and play with them every day. Sometimes it was more sophisticated - we would paint pots or try to outlast the fact that they wanted to play baba with us. It's pretty awful. Now that I'm studying again, I don't have time for that.

Zuzana:

In the spring and summer, all you had to do was sit in front of the house and wait to see who would come. We would sit and talk with the children. That's all they want. And when we come up with something creative or the possibility of going on a trip, of course they are happy. But I think they just need our presence, which doesn't happen much anymore, since Lucka is in Prague and Ostrava and I go to work every day, so we don't have that much time for them anymore. But we still have a relationship with them.

I recently listened to a podcast about Shanghai during the time it was closed. They were describing how the lock down has been surprisingly fueling community collaboration.

People became very proactive. They were exchanging things they needed. At one time the party must have been a crazy situation, but it created positive moments. Touching moments of helping each other and finding ways to deal with the situation.

Lucie:

Exactly. That was a very cool time and it was very beautiful. On the one hand, it gave us the freedom to get to know each other and hang out.

I would love it if that situation ever came up again, it would be mega. Like, it would be really cool. Actually, by living in a house where we know each other. Three and sometimes four apartments were functional most of the time. There were quite a few of us in one apartment, too. So we were a group of six/eight sometimes ten people plus all the people outside. It was a very social period for me. Probably the most social.

Didn't you miss the solitude?

Zuzana:

Not really. I was afraid of it at first. I had never lived with so many people before and I thought of myself as a very closed introverted person, but now if I were to imagine living differently - with just one person, I wouldn't be able to do it. Sometimes it's nice not to be with anyone. A day or two, a week tops, and then I'd go back anyway. Now I couldn't imagine living anywhere else but in a Roma settlement. At most, just in some other excluded locality, but not in the city.

Lucie:

I also think that my life will be only in excluded localities.

That's interesting. Do you think that the natural sociability of the Roma or the way they are social and communal in themselves has rubbed off on you?

Lucie:

I don't think so. I'm quite into community life. I feel that these people are always together because they live in hostels in very large numbers. If they had the opportunity to live individually, I can't say from my position at all if they would behave as they do now. All I see is that there are small flats full of people in which it is impossible not to have a community.

Zuzana:

It seems to me that as far as the adults are concerned, it's only in the last six months that we're starting to interact with them. Until then, it was mostly children. We talk to everybody, almost everybody I guess. Anyway, it was quite a new thing for me, as I don't have such a big family. For me, the family background here is very important. A big part of the communities here is a big family. I don't know that from my childhood, so I'm downright comfortable with their environment. It's like I have a chance to catch up. Although at the moment I consider people I'm not related to by blood to be my family, but simply people I live here with or even the kids who come here and are closest to us. So it's given me the opportunity to make a family here, so to speak.

"I can't imagine living in an apartment anymore and not knowing my neighbors and having my own world and the rest of it not being about me. It's terribly sad." - Lucie Bečvářová

I was intrigued by how you both agreed that you could no longer imagine living anywhere other than in an excluded locality.

Lucie:

Imagine the situation. I'm hanging laundry and people are walking under the house and talking to me. When I go home, people greet me. When you walk down some streets, even ten times someone calls out to you "Where are you going?". That's something I feel I need. I don't want to live in a place that's completely separate from people. I can't imagine living in an apartment anymore and not knowing my neighbours and having my own world and the rest of it not being about me. It's terribly sad.

Zuzana:

And I, being from a small village, I'm used to the fact that it was quite common there to greet everybody. And if you met someone and didn't say hello, my mother knew right away. And she used to scold me for not saying hello to my aunt here. So it's completely natural for me in that respect.

For a change, in the country, you can't do a gig in your basement until 3:00 in the morning without some neighbor complaining about the noise. Here we have such opportunities again.

Lucie:

And at the same time it's such that sometimes you think "this is not the way it can be, it can't stay like this". And it's terribly hard to change something. There are no benches, no playground. And there are 300 kids there. But you just can't solve these things, because the most you get is depression after five years of nothing happening, but at the same time it's such that you don't leave. So I want this place to be good. I want people to want to live here.

When we did the festivals, for example, when I talked to the adults, they all want to live somewhere else.

I think we're one of the few people who like living here.

Like, when these people are living in the dorms, they're just always having problems, and it's like outside, like if the city planted a few carnations or daffodils, what would that do to them?

I think they would argue that it would be ruined in a minute. That no one would appreciate it.

I'm sure it would, because there's a thousand people living in such a small place. So everything's ruined right away.

In that case, why plant it?

Everything gets destroyed at some point, that's fine.

How do you feel about creativity? What's your history with creativity?

Lucie:

I have the most positive attitude towards creativity. Without creativity I would die. But creativity is also everywhere. Whether it's an empty freezer or you need to put something in a place at home or even just to have fun with someone.

Zuzana:

Finding wood for the winter is also a very creative activity. I think we have it completely connected to everyday life.

It's our way of surviving.

Lucie:

But also how should it be otherwise? It's absolutely great this way.

Yeah, it's great. Just having experience with different housing, when housing doesn't provide creativity, it's like someone's living for me. If I pushed a button and more than once the house was warm and everything actually worked itself out, it would be like I wasn't living voluntarily. I'd be passive.

Zuzana:

We have an awful lot of room to be creative just at the Spodní, really in every corner of the house and outside.

It's a way of living. It's not possible without creativity.

What is your relationship to social work?

Zuzana:

I'm looking for one now, because I think that social work in the Czech Republic doesn't work as well as it could. What I'm interested in social work at the moment is how to find those ways to do it well.

What does it mean to do it well? In sub-tasks?

Zuzana:

For example, we are taught social work by children. Before I moved here, I didn't really do social work. And it was only on the basis of the fact that I started to work with children here on my own within the collective that I actually started to work in that sphere and now, as I see social work from the inside, I am a bit sick of some things. Racism, the attitude towards single mothers, the attitude towards mothers in shelters. Not specifically in my work, but when I focus on Ostrava.

Lucie:

My relationship to social work is mostly ambivalent, I mean. I started studying social pedagogy and I'm still in my second year. It's racist and patriarchal at times at that school. The leadership positions are always held by men. There was a conference once and there was a room full of men and I wondered who they were when otherwise social work is done by women. They were probably representatives of social institutions from all over the country. And it was all men. And I found that completely incomprehensible because there's no boys in our class. There are 5 boys in that school altogether and the toilets are the same size for girls and boys. The boys can each have their own urinal, and then one for special occasions.

And what I'm learning seems almost all wrong. Racist or intolerant in some way. I was talking to a teacher the other day about transgender people and I was thinking, why don't we talk about them more, I mean, these are people who are at risk who are more likely to be dealt with one day and need some social services and stuff. I can't imagine doing that work. When I'm dealing with these people as a neighbour, talking to them and they've got maybe some problems or something and suddenly the person is in a senior position it's not like "I'm competent to give you advice here now". That in itself is problematic. And then I would check, for example, if they're doing what we've agreed and assess that if somebody wanted to do something right, but then they did it wrong.

Zuzana:

I think if you want to do social work you have to go and be with those people and learn from those people and not in school or in the office.

Which field: social or artistic, is more fulfilling for you?

Zuzana:

For me they are only fulfilling when they are connected and our band is also fulfilling for me, but our band is also kind of social.

Lucie:

Our band is mega connected. Don't you think so?

Zuzana:

Of course it is.

And what is the name of your band?

Zuzana:

Our band is called Relaxation Music.

Lucie:

I think I'm more fulfilled by the social. When you project how I organize my life, what I deal with earlier and later. So I guess it's been more important for me since I moved to the Spodní 27 to do social and engaged things.

Do you think the combination of creative and social can be problematic in any way?

Zuzana:

I hadn't really thought of it that way.

For me it can be a bit problematic. When Luka and I were pulling it together for a while, it's very exhausting. If you're not careful and you don't watch the boundary, it's exhausting sometimes.

Lucie:

I definitely agree that two people are bad and then you can get exhausted. A job like this is for multiple people who need to enjoy working with each other.

Is your target audience automatically determined by where you are?

Zuzana:

Well, it's determined by where you live. I would never have thought of it that way, but it occurs to me that maybe we should have gone to the adults first and we could have greeted the ladies in the chairs outside and started talking to them first.

But the kids came to us, so it started without much thought in advance.

Lucie:

The target group found us. We didn't have to look for it.

Zuzana:

Yeah, that's right.

Zuzana:

You just have to move in somewhere.

Do you think art has the ability to solve urgent social problems? And if so, how?

Lucie:

Well, that's a good question. I think that there's always a large segment of artists that address those issues and offer a lot of solutions that I like and are terribly cool, but I only know about them because I'm in art school. So I think that artists have the ability to offer solutions that might suit somebody and might be great and nobody knows about it, unfortunately.

Zuzka:

I agree with Lucy. I think local people and adults don't quite know that our festival was art. It's up to people how they use their artistic power. And how much they want to do it.

Lucie:

As part of our festival here, a bunch of artists did a 14-day program for five grand, and not many people can afford that either. Having the time and creativity to do it. To put in the creativity to make it work for five grand.

A 14-day festival for 5,000?

Zuzana:

We did a 14-day festival for five thousand.

Lucie:

And it was absolutely great that we got the five thousand.

Can you think of anyone you'd like to recommend?

Well, various collectives. For example “food not bombs”.