Read the account of what happened in Prague with the Student Exhibition in June 2019 for clarity and documentation.

This exhibition questions the disappearing essence of our actions and states. When the designers of the Student Exhibition decided to pack and go back to Beirut, the exhibition was a structure with no filling. Shall we exhibit a new content as if the first exhibition never existed, or shall we respond to the disappearing exhibition? Theater, live events, and exhibitions are a work-in-progress, a continuous interaction with their surroundings and elements. The “empty” exhibition was reminiscent of deconstructionism, a concert of oppositions, meaning and utterances. On the planks of the wooden board, we wrote this manifesto in English, Arabic, Czech, Spanish and French.

Escenografía sin contenido,
Contenido sin pensar,
Pensar sin sesos,
Sesos sin inteligencia,
Inteligencia sin cuerpo,
Cuerpo sin alma,
Alma sin vibración,
Vibración sin energía,
Energía sin impacto,
Impacto sin imaginación,
Imaginación sin público,
Público sin actuación,
Actuación sin actores,
Actores sin texto,
Texto sin palabras,
Palabras sin música,
Música sin sonido,
Sonido sin espacio,
Espacio sin escenografía

Curator: Hadi E. Damien

Designer: Omar Khattar

Manifesto: Hadi E. Damien (for the original English, Arabic and French versions); Omar Khattar (for the Spanish translation) and Kristina Sedláková Salibová (for the Czech translation)

With grateful thanks to Giorgio Bassil

Young and feisty Moonstone Design House invests the space of the student exhibition. Designers Hans Harling and Sasha Elijah exhibit striking headpieces while creating new ones with the participation of PQ visitors. The student exhibition celebrates young talent, and encourages emerging designers by providing them with space and exposure during the international PQ. The exhibition braves new thought, stimulates the imagination, and provokes reactions. It reveals initial sketches, thoughts, and objects, and offers a walk into the boundless imagination of two young, creative minds.

The creative process showcases the creation of a concept, its drafting and execution. The exhibition invites the audience into the space of the young designers and engages them in creative exchange that eventually affects the outcome, and that brings new perspectives into what often becomes the foundation of a future design work. We question how the executed product differs from its original sketches under the impulse of execution and the public interaction.

PQ2019 visitors are invited to engage with the designers and to take part in the fabrication process. Learn more about Moonstone Design House and contact Hans and Sasha though their Facebook page.

The exhibition follows the curatorial approach of the PQ that asks to refrain from creating black box in particular, and walls in general, thus producing a landscape of student exhibitions.

PQ Student Exhibition Curatorial Statement: We are living in the era when young designers face an increasingly difficult task in finding connections and employment. PQ exhibitions and festival provide a great opportunity to bring together all generations of designers and to establish new connections. Some of the most inspiring ideas are often hidden away in designer's drawers never to be realized or seen by anyone. The beginning utopian sketches, thoughts, and objects often become a corner stone of important future design works. We should use our energy to find and encourage the designers whose thinking is brave, stands out, stimulates ones imagination and provokes a strong reaction. We need to give an opportunity to the young designers who are in the most fragile state, just leaving the safety of the university environment, and who are producing brave, fresh, experimental works of design. Finding ways to exhibit performance design and scenography is at the core of PQ exhibits. There is no one answer and no one solution. In the case of this competitive exhibition there are no limits to how... Young fantasy is limitless; we are not concerned with produced work. Any approach from immersive environments, through installations, to any other creative form of presenting scenographic thinking that includes the audience as an active element is valid.

Theme: Imagination
Imagination is the link to infinite possibilities and an origin from which genuine creative insights arise. It is a doorway into the place where we dream up and conceive new worlds, universes with their own inner laws and utopias. We draw them up pushed by urge to share our thoughts with others, and hide them when they don’t seem to fit the limits of the production. The exhibition brings drawings, notes, models, as well as searching for deeper meaning, and glimpses of the far corners of fantastic inner worlds.

Curator: Hadi E. Damien
All PQ2019 exhibitions and projects are curated, which means that participation is by selection through an open call application process. For the Exhibition of Countries and Regions and for the Student Exhibition, inclusion is selected through a process established by the national curator. All other PQ2019 projects are handled, curated and selected by an international board of leading practitioners.

Exhibition Designers: Hans Harling & Sasha Elijah

A Competitive Exhibition
The Student Exhibition is among other PQ2019 competitive projects that have prizes awarded by an international jury for exceptional work, such as the Golden Triga award to the best Exhibition of Countries and Regions. Non-competitive projects, though curated for participation, do not have prize categories.

Area: 16 m2 (4x4)

Venue: Prague Exhibition Grounds

Opening Hours: Thursday 6 to Saturday 15 June 2019, from 10 am to 8 pm / Saturday 8 June 2019, from 10 am to 11:59 pm / Sunday 16 June 2019, from 10 am to 6 pm

The Student Exhibition is the second main component of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. The Section is handled by the country (or region) national curator, in charge of the organization, the finance and the artistic supervision of the exhibition. The country application to the section is not subject to curatorial review by the Prague Quadrennial artistic director ; entries are accepted and the exhibitions are competitive and eligible for the PQ Awards. Be it an installation, a performance space or an exhibition, the Student Exhibition features "the best" of scenography works that have been created in the country during the previous years by students, young designers and new emerging design studios.