Art Kateřina Šedá – Líšeň Profile Exhibition March 15, 2011 The Millennium Gallery in Sheffield is now showing a large scale contemporary artwork by Kateřina Šedá , the result of a year long project in her hometown of Líšeň in the Czech Republic. The foundations of this project are notable …

The Millennium Gallery in Sheffield is now showing a large scale contemporary artwork by Kateřina Šedá , the result of a year long project in her hometown of Líšeň in the Czech Republic.

The foundations of this project are notable and typical of Šedá; an enduring commitment to reconnecting both the local and national community to a particular location, in this case a small traditional town, a victim of redevelopment finding its locality altered and community fragmented. What Šedá endeavoured was to enlighten the Czech nation to forgotten heritage.

This inspired her to ask for personal drawings of local faces by local people, with the aim of establishing whose profile most reflected the landscape of Líšeň. Essentially, a simple and practical task for social engagement and improvement using a physical rather than verbal format. In order to clarify the task, Šedá asked that all the drawings somehow included the Líšeň church in the ‘townscape’. Unfortunate to have yourself selected as the face with a nose most church-like, but most of the results don’t take this too literally. Then again many are meandering attempts, like putting pen to paper when in transit and seeing where the line takes itself.

It is a repetitive display of 500 amateur line drawings of faces in profile, though there are evidently a couple of more experienced artists in there who have produced delicate and quite beautiful impressions. Displayed in rows along the temporary wall structure in the main gallery space. Turning a corner to investigate further feels like unfortunately like going through the motions, finding 100 more portraits to glide over to inherit the idea attained from the first 100. Or even the first 10.

Aside from the unending walls of line drawings, the videos available to view in the gallery space are quite interesting personal accounts from the project participants. Quirky local tales, such as an amusing story about a local elder with no teeth are inherent to a project of this sort. There you find the heart of it, emotional ties between a community and a landscape that strengthen or wear thin over time. Families, neighbours, enemies and friends connected and disconnected to place for whatever reason.

Admirably Šedá has brought out a willingness and enthusiasm in the Czech people to contribute to a project focused on their own hometown and country, and Šedá is broadly popular there and her participants were clamouring to meet her. A country-wide awareness or even desire to contribute to a contemporary art work is a brilliant thing.

The issue now is how Líšeň will really benefit in the long run. Especially now the work belongs to Sheffield. A £60,000 award from the Contemporary Art Society meant that Museums Sheffield could commission Šedá, and keep the finished work in their collection. 500 drawings which are unlikely to be shown en masse again but elements of the project will appear in the Graves Gallery. A limited edition keepsake publication has also been printed for all the participants filled with copies of every drawing. Yet this is also undermined by the final stage of Šedá’s project, for a winning ‘Líšeň Profile’ to be selected, confusingly the ‘family favourite’ must be torn from the book and given away to be counted.

A work which intends to offer Sheffield a challenging idea of identity and community is as relevant to the Líšeň and Czech people as South Yorkshire’s. But the beauty of the work was in the process, the engagement between artist and public, and communities united through shared ritual. These are displaced drawings not telling us enough of what Šedá and her participants have accomplished for a disengaged town.

Kateřina Šedá, Líšeň Profile – 1 March to 30 May 2011

Millennium Gallery, Museums Sheffield