In October, Meet Factory will commence operations in Smíchov

Prague - A new center for contemporary art will open in October in Prague's Smíchov district. The Meet Factory space is intended by its organizers as a place for meetings of various artistic fields - visual arts, music, theater, film, dance, and more. It will also include residencies for foreign artists - following the example of similar facilities abroad, which are a fixed part of the international visual art scene. Klára Vomáčková from the non-profit organization Meet Factory informed ČTK about this.
    The project was prepared by sculptor David Černý with musician David Koller and director Alice Nellis. Apart from Černý, the studio in Meet Factory will include visual artist Krištof Kintera, and Koller will move his recording studio into the space. Among other things, the first studio in the Czech Republic specialized in rap recording is to be established, and the successful theater group TOW plans to open a multimedia workshop that creates new expression methods with the help of new technologies.
    The dilapidated building on Ke Sklárně Street in Smíchov was rented to the Meet Factory company by the city. The building is one of the old railway structures that Prague purchased when constructing the urban ring road from Barrandov Bridge to Radlická. Most of them were demolished. Only a three-story house remained, which was in a state of disrepair. The Prague city council convinced the one of three interested parties for the lease, whose focus is on an international studio residency program allowing artists to work for a period of three to 12 months in furnished studios. Information about the program can be found at the internet address www.meetfactory.cz.
    Artists will also have access to a workshop with basic technical equipment and will be able to exhibit, invite guests, and the public to the repaired facility. Similar facilities and programs exist in Stockholm, Berlin, New York, and other cities, and are considered, beyond artistic values, as an exceptionally attractive form of advertising.
    The Meet Factory was initially supposed to be established in a different location - in the former ham factory in Holešovice. However, after the floods in 2002, the then-abandoned factory space was damaged even further, and the group of people who were planning the project ultimately withdrew. The factory eventually became a complex of apartments, shops, and offices, which is set to open in the fall and is named M Factory.