45 000 l: Volume for Engaged Architecture
Eva Truncova is an architect, author and curator. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Brno University of Technology. During her studies, she undertook two study internships at the School of Architecture, Design and Media at the University of Brighton (2017–2018) and the Institute for Contemporary Arts at Graz University of Technology (2020). She visited several workshops and summer schools (Porto Academy, Bauhaus Summer School, Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, ...). Her diploma theses were awarded the 1st prize in the national diploma theses show.
As an independent architect, author and curator, she has been collaborating with several offices and collectives (BAM – Brno Architecture Manual, 4AM Forum for Architecture and Media, Paradigma Ariadné, ...). She has been the founder of a window gallery 45 000 l: Volume for Engaged Architecture under the auspices of FA BUT with the responsibilities varying from curating and producing the exhibitions to public relations and managing the public fundings.
So far, her work has been oscillating between various forms and media – from installations, curating, critical writings, and interior design to experimental design projects. In general, she aims to interconnect architecture and related fields by applying theory, imagination and narration-based design processes. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the Department of Theory at the Faculty of Architecture, BUT, with the topic Authoritative regimes and architecture in the 20th century in Europe with interest in reconditioning the past regime architectural narratives and researching the monumentality in architecture in the context of past and present.
In 2023, she is a Culture Moved Europe grantee and during the period from June to mid-August, she is a resident and an intern at OKNa gallery in Porto (PT).
"Forty-five thousand litres is a volume expanding beyond the institutional walls into the public space. The gallery aims to confront everyday reality with the issues of contemporary architecture along with its interdisciplinary overlaps. The exhibition programme seeks current social themes, reflecting them in the context of the city. This is also related to the question of how to exhibit and communicate such themes to the passers-by through the format of a shop window."
The gallery was founded in 2022 by PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture, Brno University of Technology, Eva Truncova and it operated under the auspices and with the support of FA BUT. A neglected shop window in the busy public passage in the centre of Brno offered a unique opportunity to test the limits of the exhibiting architecture and confront the public with the topics which tend to be discussed in the circles.
Since March 2022, five site-specific installations (Under Surveillance, Ukrainian Heritage under Threat, Keep Calm and Discourse, Pawnshops and MOHFR [Multitude of Highly Reflective Faces]) were introduced in the space including an international open call where four of them were chosen to be exhibited in 2023.
In the course of the last months, 45 000 l has established a group of regular opening-goers and has been recognized among the wider public leading to a transformation of the location – the passage is not used only as a shortcut and it offers an additional value in a form of gallery inclusive as possible.
The second international Open Call is planned for September 2023. This time there is an intention to set the topic and draw attention to how to design and produce site-specific installations sustainably without overproduction (if that is even possible) and to step out the format of the shop window and add more accompanying events (such as thematic guided tours, performances in the public space, etc.).