Vase/Art Object by Martina Smutná, “Carpe Diem,” Blue

Blue ceramics—art objects/vases by Martina Smutná—Carpe Diem.

Height: 44 cm.

There was a vase sitting on the sideboard at home. To me, it was a symbol of “a bygone era.” It reminded me of something I had intuitively sensed even as a child, while playing on the playground equipment during the Normalization era—something peculiar, connected to a shape that doesn’t belong in the present day.

I molded the repressed past out of clay and placed it on a shelf, just as out of place as that vase on the sideboard at home. (Martina Smutná, www.martinasmutna.com)