Date: 06.10.2025 — 14.10.2025
Beginning: 19:00
The screening selection Things That Didn’t Happen continues the annual thematic focus of etc. gallery, Beyond Belief, which investigates deviations from reality and the boundaries of credibility. The program explores
subversive artistic strategies through which the artists subtly disrupt established structures of everyday life and
expose power mechanisms that often remain invisible. These interventions do not rely on overt gestures, but unfold
through quiet, sometimes absurd actions – small gestures and situations that appear ordinary at first glance, yet
destabilize entrenched norms and challenge our assumptions of what is “real.”
At the centre of these interventions are identity, roles, and their performative construction. The artists assume or
invent new roles, impersonate others, rewrite situations, and reshape the spaces in which they unfold. Often tinged with
absurdity or exaggeration, these interventions open a space for reflection on how collective memory is formed and
rewritten, question the boundaries between staging and reality, and reveal how easily social norms can be destabilized.
The works illustrate subtle forms of everyday sabotage – seemingly innocent acts that undermine authority, disrupt
expected roles, and draw the audience out of habitual patterns. Humor, absurdity, and situational exaggeration function
as analytical tools, revealing hidden power relations while offering opportunities for new interpretations.
Things That Didn’t Happen demonstrates that reality is not fixed. Roles, rules, and narratives are conditional
and mutable. The program operates as a form of resistance against established norms, challenging automatically accepted
rules and offering a critical yet poetic perspective on the world – one that suggests events may have happened
differently than we imagine.
Jill Magid: Trust, 2004, 17’44”
In 2004, Jill Magid spent 31 days in Liverpool, during which time she developed a close relationship with Citywatch
(Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council), whose function is citywide video surveillance – the largest system of
its kind in England. The videos in her Evidence Locker were staged and edited by the artist and filmed by the
police using the public surveillance cameras in the city centre. Wearing a bright red trench coat she would call the
police on duty with details of where she was and ask them to film her in particular poses, places or even guide her
through the city with her eyes closed, as seen in the video Trust. This act creates a paradoxical situation: a
relationship founded on control transforms into a gesture of trust, surrender, and complicity. Trust explores the
boundary between security and intimacy, between submission and faith, revealing how surveillance technology can become a
medium of emotion and closeness.
Pilvi Takala: The Trainee, 2008, 13’52”
Takala worked as a trainee for a month at the Helsinki office of Deloitte. A few weeks into her placement, she began
spending her shifts staring into space, engaging in “brain work,” or riding the elevator all day to aid the flow of her
thoughts. This behavior unsettled and amused her co-workers, who were accustomed to more conventional notions of
productivity. More difficult to categorize than overtly disruptive actions, it is the subtle and ambiguous nature of
this non-doing that makes it so provocative to Takala’s colleagues, who struggle to find a way to respond to her
behavior.
Pilvi Takala: Real Snow White, 2009, 9’19”
The absurd logic of the “real character” and the extreme discipline of Disneyland become evident when a true fan of
Disney’s Snow White is banned from entering the park dressed as Snow White. While visitors are encouraged to dress up
and the park sells plenty of costume-like merchandise, full costumes are available only for children. The Disney slogan
“Dreams Come True” naturally refers to dreams produced and controlled exclusively by Disney. Anything even slightly
beyond their control evokes the fear that real, possibly dark and perverse dreams might come true. The fantasy of an
innocent Snow White doing something improper feels so plausible that security guards and management cite it as the
reason the visitor cannot enter the park dressed as Snow White.
Karolína Hovězáková: Terezka.to, 2024, 18’54”
Terezka.to is an audiovisual reconstruction of a digital identity – a fictional character whose life story is
pieced together from traces scattered across internet archives. From these fragments, the artist constructs an intimate
yet anonymous portrait of Terezka that oscillates between reality and fiction. Online moments are transformed into a
melancholic meditation on memory, identity, and the mutability of digital existence. The film explores the tension
between authenticity and performance, between documentary and construction – between what actually happened and what
easily could have happened. It creates a peculiar sense of closeness and estrangement, where the boundaries between the
authentic and the constructed life dissolve entirely.
Jill Magid: Final Tour, 2004, 2’56”
Final Tour marks the closing movement of Magid’s Evidence Locker project. In this work, the artist
undertakes a final journey through the city – guided and observed by surveillance cameras, as if performing a ritual of
farewell. Composed of footage from the police’s monitoring system, the video turns institutional observation into an act
of vulnerability and presence. The camera becomes not merely an instrument of authority but a witness to an intimate
encounter. Final Tour concludes Magid’s dialogue with the logic of surveillance, transforming its cold
infrastructure into a poetic space of empathy, introspection, and melancholic closeness.
Promítaná videa / Screened videos:
Jill Magid: Trust, 2004, 17’44”
Pilvi Takala: The Trainee, 2008, 13’52”
Pilvi Takala: Real Snow White, 2009, 9’19”
Karolína Hovězáková: Terezka.to, 2024, 18’54”
Jill Magid: Final Tour, 2004, 2’56”
Projekce / Screening: 6. 10. 2025, 19:00 (etc. galerie, Sarajevská 16, Praha 2)
Online projekce / Online screening: 7.–14. 10. 2025
Kurátorka / Curator: Nela Klajbanová
Grafika / Graphic design: Nela Klímová
Překlad a časování titulků / Translation and subtitle timing: Markéta Effenbergerová, Natálie Dutá
Produkce / Production: Sára Märc, Tereza Vinklárková
Videa jsou promítána česko-anglicky. / The videos are presented in both Czech and English.
Na vizuálu je použit video still z videa Real Snow White od Pilvi Takala. / The visual features a video still
from Real Snow White by Pilvi Takala.
Projekt je uskutečněn za podpory Hlavního města Prahy, Prahy 2 a Ministerstva kultury České republiky. / The project is
supported by the City of Prague, Prague 2 District, and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
