A Second Life

The occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies in 1968 unleashed, among other things, a mass-scale emigration. Thousands of Czechs and Slovaks plucked up the courage to make the big leap into the unknown in order to live in freedom and with dignity. How do people who chose Switzerland as their second home view their identity now, fifty years later? What paths did their lives take? What is their relationship with their homeland? These are some of the questions asked by the Czech-Swiss photographer Iren Stehli. Her portrait photographs of twenty-five personalities will be accompanied by texts providing an insight into their individual stories. The exhibition will also feature a documentary film by Fiona Ziegler, a Swiss director and student of the FAMU academy. This travelling project took shape in collaboration with the Swiss Embassy in the Czech Republic. The Brno exhibition in the House of Arts will be the third stop on its journey around Czech and Moravian towns and cities.