I conceived the project "last summer i have fallen in love madly" as a performative multimedia installation in the space of a drained swimming pool. My work has long been concerned with concepts of non-normative time and space, emanating primarily from the field of queer theory. The period after the end of the summer season is associated with a cooling of the climate, an intense return to work and school duties, and seasonal affective disorder. The swimming pool, as a space primarily intended for public relaxation and/or sport, is often tied to a set of individual memories that are largely associated with childhood, family life and collective activities. In its emptied/non-functional form, it loses the purpose of its own existence and loses its justification. A popular public place becomes a dreary and disturbing space which in turn disturbs and/or poses a direct physical threat. It becomes a space that is inherently non-normative, and as a result has the potential to exist autonomously outside of established social patterns.


The installation in the swimming pool area is formally based on stage design. The original sketches for the project, which I have been gradually developing since October 2022, include objects installed directly in the pool area. These objects were partly based on the concept of scaffolding, construction, or reconstruction of the space. The installation was to include ladders and platforms into which glass panels, doors, lightboxes and other objects were embedded to imaginatively divide the space. Gradually I came to the conclusion that the conceptual framework of the whole project does not stand on the objects that I bring into the pool area.

On the contrary, each new artifact in the space, although it adds a new contextual layer, is not a carrier of the main meaning itself. I decided to leave the pool space empty, filled only with the "necessary" technical equipment (i.e. light and sound) that directly encourage the expectation of performative action.

Around the pools, imaginary communities are formed. It is common that if you regularly visit a swimming pool close to where you live, you meet the same people, just like in cafés, fitness centres or even public transport. If the swimming pool area in its transformed form becomes emptied, its function of building an imaginary community can be restored precisely by embracing it as our own at every stage of its cycle. In its emptied form, we have the opportunity to find new uses for it, new ways of spending time together and thus unconventional ways of establishing and strengthening social relations.


Today, October 17, is the brightest full supermoon of 2024. The October full moon symbolizes the definitive end of the summer season, which is why it is also called the "Hunter's Moon" in Western culture, and is associated with the preparation of supplies for the winter (however, it carries various other names and meanings in different cultures). Today's event can therefore be understood as an imaginary closing of the summer season and its related activities, or, on the contrary, it can be understood as an opening of the collective imagination in connection with a space that has ceased to serve us at first glance in its current state.