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You are entering Eva Koťátková's world. It may be a school, quite ordinary with worn chairs and standard bulletin boards, but at the same time strange. You tread carefully in the deserted classrooms, where someone was apparently still there a moment ago, and in the next moment they may fill up again and come alive with mysterious activities. For now, however, only the radio is speaking, with a suspicious psychotherapist giving you advice, then perhaps a local student begins to recount fragments of his disturbing imaginings, only to be replaced by snippets of memories of people whose exhaustion has led them into unusual situations. And everything smells of fish. Or is it just my imagination? In any case, fish accompany us everywhere. In the middle of a cluster of school chairs, the ribs of a giant, half-dissected fish carcass arch upward, and finned tails (from children's costumes?) hang over the backs of the chairs. There is an octopus by the door, and someone has pinned a number of pictures of scaly creatures to the bulletin board. The speaker talks about diving into water (Would you like to try it? There is water in the bucket.), fish in aquariums, tubs, and plastic bags, or those who have closed themselves off like fish. In the Body of a Fish on Dry Land – that was the name of one of the author's exhibitions. And in one of her interviews, we read: "I often use (...) real (...) or fictional stories. In them, I try to empathize with the position of someone else for whom I speak." That is, someone whose voice cannot be heard, and at the same time for many others trapped in the nets of silence, for people and animals, for plants, and also for herself.And what do fish talk about when they are out of water? About life in unnatural conditions, the weight of institutions and social structures, processes of re-education, legitimized violence and oppression, loss of empathy and compassion for others, trauma and anxiety, about becoming someone else. Or about borderline situations of mental and physical limitation, evoked by costumes with heavy heads and clumsy tentacles collapsed in a corner. But fish out of water need not be just a symbol of injustice and fear. They are also fish that are not in water—in the water of normality, prejudice, and bondage. Like the student on the radio sinking into the depths of daydreaming, the woman stuck in the middle of the hustle and bustle for hours in an elevator, the therapy participant detaching himself from his surroundings, or the one whose isolation is told by the carpet on the wall. Abnormality and non-normativity do not appear here as a burden, but as positive qualities that enable liberation. And it is precisely the ability to detach oneself, or at least to see the possibility of stepping elsewhere, that has long interested Koťátková. Empathy proves to be one of the important paths of escape, resistance, and revolt. This is true even with a fish opened up in an aquaculture class (Aquaculture: a system of unpunished exploitation of aquatic fauna and flora in an anthropocentric culture). Because if we see the world through the eyes of a fish, there is a chance that we will think about it more critically and our relationships, even if they do not become completely symmetrical, will be more compassionate, ethical, and democratic.
Ondřej Navrátil
