A multi-layered project, with which GAMPA is embarking on a new phase of its existence, explores the possibilities of space-time narration in the context of the story of the iconic Automatic Mills building in Pardubice. Over the course of 10 years, it has undergone a significant transformation from a milling operation to an arts center.
The involvement of citizens and the independent art scene played an important role in this transformation process. The aim of the Mlýnský ostrov project is to reflect this role and, through contemporary artistic expression, to recall and retell the story of the place in a different narrative.
Rather than an exhibition, it is an authorial environment—architecture within architecture. The vision for this solution is based on the motif of an island, a changing landscape, lithospheric plates, and the story of the mill complex itself. The basic conceptual framework creates space for collective and individual multi-genre artistic and curatorial work. The narrative is divided into three chapters: echo, shift, transformation. These are themes that touch on the history of the place, but at the same time relate to other society-wide themes, offering different interpretations and contexts.
The chapter devoted to reverberation touches on the themes of altered urban acoustics in the process of urban transformation, as well as the voices of the public and various communities in public spaces.
Shift is a chapter about work, its transformation, and changing priorities—it is about work in the context of factory shift operations and about the value and evaluation of artistic work.
The chapter on transformation deals not only with the transformation of places themselves, but above all with the transformation of institutions.
It is important for the Mill Island project that the core of the curatorial selection of collaborating artists consists of individuals who participated in various stages of the transformation of the Automatic Mills from a factory into an art center and thus entered the project with previous experience and memories of the space and the process of working with it. In many cases, this way of working in a site-specific context initiated interdisciplinary collaboration, which we are continuing and further developing in this project. Through its implementation, the project explores and opens up possibilities for contemporary exhibition practice and the role of the gallery in the context of the city and its community—it functions as a laboratory, the gallery space is not conceived as a "showcase of beauty," but as a space for lively dialogue and communication of a multi-layered story, in which the visitor is an active participant.
