Interactive 'SHOTBY.US: Space of Desire' Exhibition Features 19th Czech Grand Design Finalists at Kunsthalle Praha
6. 2. 2025
The Academy of Design of the Czech Republic, led by expert juries, has narrowed the broad nominations for the Czech Grand Design Awards 2024 down to final triplets. Twenty-four designers and creators now have a chance to receive an award for the best achievement in the fields of product design, fashion, jewelry, photography, graphic design, and illustration. The work and projects of the finalists will be presented to the public in the exhibition project SHOTBY.US: Space of Desire, which will be on display at Kunsthalle Praha from February 7 to March 10, 2025. The grand announcement of the winners in all categories, including the overall winner across all fields – the Grand Designer 2024 – and the new honorary member of the Czech Design Hall of Fame, will take place at the Estates Theatre in Prague on Monday, March 3, 2025, starting at 8:00 PM. The event will be broadcast live on ČT art and iVysílání.
The final triplets of the Czech Grand Design Awards – with the exception of the Grand Designer and the Czech Design Hall of Fame, which were determined in the second round of discussions by the expert juries of the Academy of Design of the Czech Republic – will be presented to the public for the first time at Kunsthalle Praha in the exhibition SHOTBY.US: Space of Desire. The artistic realization of the exhibition is undertaken by the photographic duo SHOTBY.US – the laureates of the Photographer of the Year award at Czech Grand Design in 2023 and 2020, Lenka Glisníková and Karolína Matušková – with Iva Polanecká as curator. The duo SHOTBY.US is known for its expressive and playful approach to photography and its ability to create visual narratives. For the exhibition, they transformed the space of Galerie 3 at Kunsthalle Praha into a multi-layered installation that serves as a platform for the works of the finalists of the Czech Grand Design 2024 awards.
“The dollhouse became a key motif for us, one that has long attracted and inspired us. We liked the idea of bringing this microcosm into a gallery setting—a space that can be built, shaped, and enlivened with situations, stories, and new relationships. For the dollhouse, we also created its inhabitants—beings that function both as displays of objects and as oversized toys. Entities that straddle the line between whimsically cute furniture and slightly eerie, disfigured dolls, with which one can interact at the exhibition,” explain SHOTBY.US members Karolína Matušková and Lenka Glisníková. They add, “We divided the gallery space into three stylized environments: a commercial storefront, a street, and rooms. Visitors can enter, read a book, or simply lie down and relax on a carpet where a flickering video image projects the seductive surfaces of the awarded finalists’ works. They can stroll along the street, sit on a bench, or contemplate by a fountain. In doing so, they become the final missing piece of this spatial composition, where the boundary between viewers and exhibits dissolves.”
This unique exhibition project has emerged at the intersection of contemporary design presentation and visual art, transcending traditional gallery formats. The exhibition environment captures the emotion of desire and critically reflects our relationship to objects and the ways in which they are presented in contemporary visual culture. Inspired by theorist Beatriz Colomina, the artists of SHOTBY.US explore how modern subjectivity is produced through decor and how domestic space becomes a stage for public engagement. In an era when the world we created no longer “designs” us, but rather “designs” us, private space transforms into a performative scene where a play unfolds between authenticity and stylization.
“The exhibition presents a critical reflection on contemporary visual culture through a unique fusion of a design show and a site-specific installation. SHOTBY.US creates a multi-layered environment that questions the relationship between object and subject, between presentation and representation. The project not only transcends the boundaries between design and contemporary art, but also opens up a discourse on the ways in which we perceive and consume material culture in today’s society,” explains Iva Polanecká, curator and project manager at Kunsthalle Praha.
The architectural design of the exhibition is by the acclaimed scenographer Marek Cpin, who is also preparing the scenography for the award ceremony at the Estates Theatre. The ceremony will take place on Monday, March 3, 2025, from 8:00 PM and will be broadcast live on ČT art and iVysílání. The winners will receive an award designed by last year’s Grand Designer, Jan Plecháč, produced by a master at the Moser glassworks in Karlovy Vary. The creative gala evening will be hosted by actor Miloslav König, with live musical accompaniment by Albert Romanutti of the band Bert & Friends.
“We have been conceptualizing the exhibition project with Kunsthalle for more than a year. We appreciate that Kunsthalle Praha’s chief curator, Christelle Havranek, views design as an integral part of visual culture, which is not entirely taken for granted in the Czech Republic. However, we wanted to create a concept that would not simply display the works of the nominated designers in a conventional way. Christelle suggested that the finalists be presented through the perspective of the current Photographers of the Year 2023 – the duo SHOTBY.US. It turned out to be a fantastic idea. Karolína Matušková and Lenka Glisníková, together with scenographer Marek Cpin, invite us into their world—a world inhabited by beings that evoke Czech design. You can settle in with them in a living room or stroll along a street that represents the best of what has happened in Czech design over the past year. An original microcosm has emerged, whose unique aesthetics add an extra dimension—playfulness and joy—to the works,” adds Jana Zielinski, director of the Designblok festival and a member of the Czech Grand Design Preparatory Committee.
The exhibition SHOTBY.US: Space of Desire will be on view at Kunsthalle Praha until March 10, 2025, with gallery admission. The grand announcement of the winners and the award ceremony for Czech Grand Design 2024 will take place on Monday, March 3, 2025, from 8:00 PM at the Estates Theatre in Prague and will be broadcast live on ČT art and iVysílání. The list of finalists for Czech Grand Design 2024 can be found at czechgranddesign.cz.
