Šárka Zahálková is an artist, curator, researcher, educator, and cultural activist whose practice often grows out of creative collectives and communities. Her work explores themes related to public space, acoustic ecology, non-hierarchical collaboration, and degrowth principles in art. Through her projects, she often addresses the permeability of communities and boundaries, resilience, the role of hierarchy, empathy, and, last but not least, the artistic gesture extended through time. She completed her doctoral studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and currently works as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno. She also collaborates with several NGOs. Among other things, she co-founded the Offcity collective and curates its residency programme.

Tiny plants below your feet can find their way to live.

My name is Šárka. I've been living in Pardubice for almost 20 years now. I feel like home here. I like the city. I like the community. I like the people in here. And what I like the most is the thing that I can cycle basically everywhere. And one place which I'd like to talk about is the Automatic Mills, which I have my memories quite connected to, through, like, the situation when it was before the reconstruction, and through a lot of civic activism which was before, and, yeah, through some kind of, like, grassroots activities, which basically created some kind of, like, soul for the place, I think. And now, after the reconstruction, I, of course, I like the place, and I am very happy about the things which are happening there. There are really nice people, nice... It's a very nice cultural spot. But what I might be quite critical about is the approach of the architect, in a way that when he was designing the whole area, he didn't think about the future and basically about the living organisms. It was more about, really, like architecture as a statue, let's say. So he didn't design much space for nature itself, like trees and plants and stuff. But the local community, people who are taking care of the buildings and program and organizations, they, of course, try to bring in plants, nature, and other species, non-human species, in there, and that's beautiful. I think it's great. But what I like the most is, like, something which appears there, like, quite naturally, that, like, you can see the plants growing in between the cracks, growing in between the bricks, and they can find their way. And basically, like, all these, like, cracks, I like them very much also around the city. You can perceive them as something which is wrong, which is a mistake, but this kind of, like, mistake is also a space for something new, with something which doesn't fit into, like, “This is, like, nice plant, and it should be here. This is not nice plant. It should not be here.” So it decides for itself, and it creates something new, and I like it. I think it also, for me, it opens up certain perception that, like, of course, you are in this, like, quite huge, beautiful, opulent architecture. You can be quite astonished by it, which is, of course, fine and okay and makes sense, definitely. But at the same time, you can feel astonished by the architecture somewhat, but by these tiny, tiny plants below your feet, which can find their way to live and to survive. So it's very inspiring for me.