It was an honor for our school to host the second mobility of the AR.AC.N.E. project with the subtitle “František Kupka and his work.”
Planes and buses brought our colleagues from Tallinn (Estonia), Parabita (Italy), Sibiu (Romania), and Gaziantep (Turkey) on Sunday, March 3rd. We accommodated teachers in 1-3 bed rooms and distributed their students among the kind families of our own students.
DAY 1 Monday in the name of clay, wine, knives, and many stairs.
We introduced ourselves, the mayor, and our city. – We introduced the most important Czech painter, František Kupka. – Inspired by the work of František Kupka, we began creating flat clay artwork. – We prepared wine-box lanterns for Wednesday evening. – We almost never cut ourselves. – We listened to trumpet players at the Prague Gate and explored it thoroughly. – We listened to flutists at St. Lawrence Church and properly explored it. – We decorated white t-shirts and our skin with UV motifs. – We brought the M-klub to life with the sounds of Projekt, Dixík, and Didžina.
DAY 2 Tuesday in the name of more knives, blood, barrels, and those stairs, or the day from the perspective of a teenage Romanian, Andreas Alfred Schuller.
Monday was amazing, although at ten o’clock we were kicked out of that nice little club near the school. But still, with loud stomping, clapping, and singing “We will rock you” (and I, the author, felt completely uncomfortable under the pressure of the lyrics “we will rock you!” so I agreed to extend curfew by another half hour, and I returned to the DJ booth).
None of us could wait for the morning, or at least I couldn’t, and none of us expected what was going to happen that day.
It started with a huge barrel. It was an octagon. The task was clear: cut the barrel so that its eight walls tell a story. An artwork in eight pictures.
Soon we agreed, sketched everything, and started cutting…
In a moment of short mental dysfunction, I pressed the cardboard to my thigh and started cutting with my new friend. It worked, it even took my favorite jeans and a part of my leg. Oops!
So I gritted my teeth. I, a strong young man from the Balkan Peninsula, who even swims in the Black Sea in winter, could not cry “ouch!” Four stitches solved everything, and I still had time that day to carve, now only into cardboard, not living tissue, mine or anyone else’s. I was careful!
My bravery was rewarded in the afternoon with a visit to the beautiful town of Litomyšl, which you, Mejťáci, as you call yourselves, know better than I do.
DAY 3 Wednesday in the name of bake some bread, build a wall, let sorrow for family sink in, walk through our school now!
The foreign students, now fully familiar with Kupka’s work, created Kupka-inspired paintings on wood, from which our team of teachers then created a beautiful mosaic in front of the staffroom. This mosaic can be seen in front of the staffroom every school day from 12:00 to 18:00 for the next ten years.
In the evening, we installed their lanterns and barrels in the historic center of the city. After seeing their joint work, for which we are forever grateful, their new friendships deepened, and the entire mobility became one big international family.
DAY 4 Thursday in the name of Kupka, Kujebáci
The students created posters on the theme of the whole mobility, “František Kupka and his work.”
Two Estonian teachers got stuck in the disabled toilet during the handing out of the city’s annual awards in Vysoké Mýto. However, they were soon rescued by the M-club staff.
DAY 5 Friday in the name of sadness and Prague
The students said goodbye to their families. The first tears were seen around seven in the morning in front of the Vysoké Mýto Art School. The families from Vysoké Mýto waved to their students from faraway regions.
In Prague, the students visited the Museum Kampa and the DOX Center for Contemporary Art. More tears flowed, it was time to say goodbye and return to their homes.
