In her work, Kateřina Šedá focuses on sociallyconceived
events, often employing dozens or
hundreds of people who have nothing to do with
art. The events mostly take place right in villages
or city streets. The purpose of experimenting with
interpersonal relationships is to bring those involved
out of their stereotypes or social isolation. She
tries to induce a lasting change in their behaviour
by means of their own (provoked) activity and a
new usage of everyday resources.

THERE IS NOTHING THERE (2003)

My largest public project is the social game
„There’s Nothing There” which involved most
of the people residing in the Moravian town of
Ponětovice. Based on a questionnaire that I distributed
to the town’s inhabitants it became apparent
that most families in a village spend Saturdays in
a similar way.

My second finding was that village people live with
a certain amount of scepticism:t hey think that
everything substantial takes place in cities (they
say “there’s nothing here” when talking about their
village. My task was to show normalcy. I compiled
from the questionnaire data a Daily Regime – an
obligatory programme for Saturday, May 5, 2003
and tried to convince all of the town’s people to adhere
to the programme. And so the people got up
out of bed, went shopp-ing (everyone bought the
same thing for a symbolic subsidised price), then
swept the walkway, had a lunch of tomato sauce
and dumplings, went for a beer and all turned out
their lights at the same time.

This simple game helped show people that something
big can happen in a small town: you just have
to do it together.

Kateřina Šedá