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Hunt Kastner is pleased to present The Linden, Michaela Thelenová’s fourth exhibition with the gallery. The show brings together several photographic series, both recent and earlier: manually edited Self-Portraits (1994), T-Shirts (2003), manipulated certificates Nothing but the Truth (2009), and the latest series, Under the Linden Tree, from 1996–2024. The latter particularly has deep roots embedded within the history of the place where she lives, in the center of the former North Bohemian Sudetenland in the village of Sovolusky near Ústí nad Labem.

“A return to fundamental life themes and periods, a celebration of continuity and strong bonds built over many years. This is how we can perceive the current exhibition by photographer Michaela Thelenová, whose collaboration with Hunt Kastner began, significantly, almost twenty years ago with the exhibition “About Freedom.” Patience and time in the long term are not only attributes of the author’s lifestyle, but also of her work, which reminds us that strong mutual bonds are not formed overnight. Whether it be work, friendship, and family relationships, or a relationship with a place and local community built step by step.

Miša Thelenová’s work is not usually accompanied by dramatic gestures—her practice is more subtle, the result of sensitive observation and perception of the environment in which she lives. Everyday life, family, and social roles reveal to the viewer an intimacy set in the broader context of social and historical development and work with the medium of photography. This is also the case with the series of photographs ‘Self-Portrait’, from 1994, which, with a slight exaggeration, foreshadow the future post-production possibilities that the first version of Photoshop brought just two years later. Subtle interventions in the self-portrait allow the author to slightly alter her own identity and at the same time gently refine the viewer’s ability to reveal details. This is also the basis for the series of photographs ‘T-shirts’ (2003), which captures with gentle humor the disparate layers that arise from a random combination of pop culture and religious references, inscriptions, and symbols. In this series, the artist captures the formative years of her daughter and her classmates, one that is marked by carefree innocence and a natural degree of ignorance. Photography finds itself in the role of a time capsule, freezing a specific phase in the lives of loved ones, captured in the typical aesthetics of the period.

It is precisely due to the author’s ability to observe her own life and surroundings with such focus that connections between personal experiences and their place in the context of where she lives—the small village of Sovolusky in the hills above Ústí nad Labem—come to the surface. In the series ‘Pod lípou’ (Under the Linden Tree, 1996-2024), photography serves as a tool for revealing connections, capturing time, and relating to everyday reality and local identity. The author perceives its nature as a connection between historical, poignant sites following the expulsion of the German population, but also between the relationships between people who have re-rooted themselves in these places and found their home there. The author’s community-oriented, socially focused, and engaged practice is based on the need to understand and come to terms with history, as well as the desire to create a better environment for its residents. Since moving to Sovolusky in 1996, the author and her husband have been taking care of the public space of the village square, where they built a seating area under a linden tree, added a plaque showing the history of the village, created a website, and continue to initiate intergenerational neighborhood celebrations and theater performances. The over 100-year-old linden tree in the center of the village has become an important symbol for the author in her search for her own identity and in gradually building relationships in the neighborhood community, which continues to grow and succeed in sharing the cycle of life, both its sorrows and joys.”

Text by Petra Widžová

Michaela Thelenová (b. 1969) is an artist whose work examines the environment around her home in Sovolusky, a village in the former Sudetenland near Ústí nad Labem. Active on the art scene since the early 1990s, she works primarily with photography and digital media, combining visual and textual strategies to explore how personal experience intersects with historical memory, regional identity, and broader social conditions. Thelenová became an assistant in the newly founded Photography Studio at the University of Ústí nad Labem in 1994 and has headed the Digital Media Studio since 2008. Her early work – described by Michal Koleček and Zdena Kolečková as conceptual “non-photography” – focused on intimate family narratives and the psychological terrain of childhood. At the same time, she developed a sustained interest in the layered histories of northern Bohemia, engaging themes of partnership, motherhood, memory, and the relationship between the individual and place. Around the turn of the millennium, Thelenová expanded her practice into digital environments, layering photographs with web imagery or reworking historical texts through contemporary technologies. Since 1992, Thelenová has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her works are in the collection of the National Gallery in Prague, the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové, the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín, the Gallery of Fine Art in Ostrava, the Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice nad Labem, and the Klatovy/Klenová Gallery. In 2003, she was a finalist for the Jindřich Chalupecký Award.