Project information
Beyond the Village. Folk Cultures as Agents of Modernity, 1918-1945
- Project Identification
- GA24-10997S
- Project Period
- 1/2024 - 12/2026
- Investor / Pogramme / Project type
-
Czech Science Foundation
- Standard Projects
- MU Faculty or unit
- Faculty of Arts
- Keywords
- folk cultures; art/design; design history; craft; modernism; modernity; Czechoslovakia; Protectorate; diaspora; gender; ethnicity
This project examines folk cultures as active participants in and agents of political, economic social and cultural change in Czechoslovakia between 1918 and 1945. Examining the political, commercial and emancipatory roles of folk cultures (i.e. ceramics, garments, textiles, costumes, toys and furniture), the project views them as an organic phenomenon capable of engaging with the challenges of modernity.
The project is innovative in three aspects. 1. It interrogates local cultures which include not only Czech and Slovak but also Ruthenian, German, Hungarian, or Roma art and design. 2. It focuses on the transfer of folk cultures between geographies by looking at the roles it had for the diaspora in the USA. 3. It addresses the intensely gendered nature of folk cultures and analyses women’s role as producers, consumers and promoters of folk modernity.
Sustainable Development Goals
Masaryk University is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to improve the conditions and quality of life on our planet by 2030.
Publications
Total number of publications: 40
2025
-
Global Folk Art? The Paradoxes of Czechoslovak International Exhibitions
Year: 2025, type: Requested lectures
-
In women’s hands : the gendered dimensions of social photography in Central Europe, 1928–1948
Year: 2025, type: Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
-
Modernism in the Periphery : Judit Kárász’s Rural Abstractions
Year: 2025, type: Conference abstract
-
Modernist language for the countryside : abstract photography and the interwar hungarian village movement'
Year: 2025, type: Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
-
Neměnná a vždy stylová : Československá lidovost v meziválečné emigraci a emancipaci
Year: 2025, type: Requested lectures
-
"Peasant Gowns" for American Ladies: Czechoslovak Folk Art Exhibit at the Woman's World Fair, 1927
Year: 2025, type: Requested lectures
-
Photography as a Weapon - Bauhaus, Class Struggle and Activism in the Work of Irena Blühova
Year: 2025, type: Requested lectures
-
Rewriting folk art in contemporary Central Europe : Romani design, transnationalism, and the politics of cultural heritage
Year: 2025, type: Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
-
Rural Temporalities : Positions of Realism Between Social Documentary and National Photography in Central Europe
21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual, year: 2025, volume: 6, edition: 4, DOI
-
"The Eternal Beauty of Archaic Slovakia." The Dissemination of the Rural Image of Slovak People and Land in the Interwar Period (1918-1939)
Year: 2025, type: Appeared in Conference without Proceedings