Lidová škola života
about the exhibition
Who hasn't heard of modurit and linocut
Long before they started giving shape to Egoé products and to the whole of Design Field, they were trying their hand at drawing, watercolour, linocut, working with Modurit and other artistic techniques. The exhibition Lidová škola života, prepared specially for this year's WiFič VEN!, presents the childhood work of the people who today shape what we design, make and sell at Egoé.
All the artists in this exhibition share one thing: they took their first steps in art at people's art schools — what we now call ZUŠ. These schools were never just a stepping stone for future professional artists. They gave children a place to create regularly, to learn how to look, to concentrate, and to turn their own ideas into something concrete. In an era that didn't much favour individuality, they were often a small island of freedom and imagination.
The work on show here doesn't, of course, reveal who will one day become a designer, an architect, or a Red Dot Design Award winner. But it shows something perhaps more important: that every professional result starts somewhere. With a first line, a first idea, a first thing made with your own hands. And with someone who gives a child the time and space to try.
Design Field carries this tradition forward today with the Art Reformatory, a creative workshop not just for children. Here too, people draw, make, experiment, get things wrong, and start again. Our aim isn't to raise future award winners. We want to encourage the courage to create, and to show that there's no sharp line between a child's drawing and "real" design. Only a path between them.
