I never lived in the tower block of a prefabricated housing estate. When I was a child, I dreamed about hanging out among the slabs and exploring their strange surroundings with the cool kids, but I rarely was that lucky. The experience of living in a concrete housing environment is very common in Central and Eastern Europe. Almost thirty percent of households in the Czech Republic are located there. The biggest one, South City in Prague, today is the location of the temporary Gallery Galaxie in a former multiplex cinema waiting for demolition. Háje, the terminal metro C line may seem like it’s off limits from an outsider’s point of view. For many locals it represents a dirty, uneasy place. To find a gallery hidden between platforms in a multilevel inhospitable public space is itself an experience. But this is part of the story. As you walk through a black curtain you find a cozy place with a bar, a theater and exhibition halls. The display on view is related to the gallery’s surroundings, the panel housing estate. 

It is not just architecture, but various media that bring the estate’s visual culture to light. Historical context is provided by the unique orientation system designed for the South City by Jiří Rathouský. The early days are present in black and white photographs of children playing and people traversing mud on their way home. A shirt created through a collaborative event organized by Kateřina Šedá hangs next to a participatory project by curator Ondřej Horák, a questionnaire about the sites in the South City that are important for its residents’ daily lives. In the same way as the inhabitants personalize the standardized flats in Sylva Francová’s and Patricie Fexová’s photo series, the paintings, graphics, sculptures, video installation and photographs dwell in the seemingly abandoned temporary exhibition hall. 

On the provisional levels that were transferred from the movie theater’s auditorium the exhibition calls the viewer to action. Instead of remaining a black box, the gallery now serves the local community and offers an immersive experience of the panel housing estate. The concrete city is not dead; rather it brims with life. 

md.