Designblok 2025 x Atelier Šunčík

This year’s Designblok theme is “Courage!”. So I told myself my participation would not be taken as provocation, but as a concept — and I sent in my application. A strong motivation was also my May appearance at the Křehký Mikulov festival, where the Šunčík Atelier had its first wider public presentation and met with success. During the summer months, with double the effort (it kept raining anyway), new designs were born and soon after their ceramic forms. The October Designblok exhibition of the atelier will therefore be composed almost entirely of these fresh works. Older, though still this year’s pieces, will appear only in a few key examples. With courage, I also included in the final selection works that carry a flaw, a trace that crept into their final form — and so they are not for sale. But you will still have the chance to see them. For instance, the lamp “By the Beech” or the white cat you are looking at right now. Maneki-neko. The Japanese figure of a white cat that, since the seventeenth century, has tirelessly waved its paw to invite good fortune, prosperity, or protection to its owner. Despite its unapologetic greediness, the white color itself symbolizes purity, positive energy, and harmony. Traditionally, the raised left paw calls in customers — but that is not the kind of approach I follow in my work. My cat therefore raises its right paw, drawing in money. Around its base runs an inscription of Dorothy Parker’s famous quote: “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” You can meet the cat — and me — from October 8 to 12, on the first floor of the Museum of Decorative Arts. I’m very much looking forward to that encounter.
D. Š.