We are a city gallery bringing our visitors an opportunity to experience intense encounters with contemporary visual arts. Contemporary art is not just something in which one can find pleasure, but rather a particular creative approach to the world. It may result in objects immediately recognisable as works of art, but also in situations or events in time and space, through which artists explore the present and invite viewers to be active and think for themselves.

We are convinced that the gallery should do justice to the nature of contemporary art and meet the needs of artists, curators and other creators. Not the other way around. In fact, a gallery that clings to tried-and-tested and obligatory formats and practices isn’t working properly – not only in relation to art and artists, but above all in relation to the public. Contemporary art sees and shows the world from perspectives that are seemingly not a normal part of our everyday actions. And that’s where its value is to be found.

The contemporary art gallery helps artists realize their visions. At the same time, though, it creates a background for visitors that enables them to recognise and intensely experience ideas about the world and suggestions on how to perceive it, what to do in it and with it, expressed through artistic creation. To understand this, we also offer glimpses into other disciplines that set it in a broader context. In this way, we ourselves keep learning – from the artists, and also from our visitors and collaborators. And education is something that we consider to be an equal and integral part of our activities and identity.

We believe in contemporary art that is continuously developing and whose forms, functions and intentions are constantly changing, just like the world itself. The initial values of modern art – the openness to the new, the criticism of social injustice and a belief in people as free, sensitive and thoughtful beings – continue in contemporary art in a way that corresponds to the 21st century experience and takes on unique forms in various places around the world, including Ostrava.

Our task is to work with contemporary art in order to convey to the people of Ostrava and its immediate surroundings diverse ways of understanding and experiencing the present on the one hand, and on the other the inspiring alternatives for the future, which are being explored by artists from all over the world. With their help, we develop an awareness of an increasingly complex world and different ways of understanding, depicting and considering its risks and challenges. We do it for the benefit of the inhabitants of this unique city – and beyond – as we share responsibility for its condition.

Our new venue, the renovated municipal slaughterhouse, in a way represents a solid, supporting point for our activities, which makes it possible for our programme to preserve a certain conscious degree of volatility and improvisation. We therefore intend to use the next few years to explore, among other things, the various possibilities offered by the new venue and its immediate surroundings.

Marek Pokorný
Director of PLATO

April 2022

Director
Marek Pokorný
marek.pokorny@plato-ostrava.cz

Assistant to the director, Economic administration officer
Michaela Durajová
+420 724 881 583
michaela.durajova@plato-ostrava.cz

Deputy director, Communication
Dita Eibenová
+420 739 678 915
dita.eibenova@plato-ostrava.cz

Operation director
Magda Luňáčková
+420 602 201 857
magda.lunackova@plato-ostrava.cz

Curator
Edith Jeřábková
+420 736 699 600
edith.jerabkova@plato-ostrava.cz

Curator and programming
Jakub Adamec
+420 739 675 582
jakub.adamec@plato-ostrava.cz

Curators
Daniela and Linda Dostálková

Project manager
Pavlína Spurná
+420 721 318 254
pavlina.spurna@plato-ostrava.cz

Promotion and graphic output manager
Michaela Ondroušková
+420 737 834 512
michaela.ondrouskova@plato-ostrava.cz

Coordination of the program of partners
Lívie Škutová
+420 737 856 981
livie.skutova@plato-ostrava.cz

Gallery educators

Alice Sovadinová, head
+420 737 855 798
alice.sovadinova@plato-ostrava.cz

Iveta Horáková (long-term sick leave)
iveta.horakova@plato-ostrava.cz

Jana Adamec Tkáčová
+420 727 952 712
jana.adamectkacova@plato-ostrava.cz

Production

Tereza Měsícová
+420 720 955 726
tereza.mesicova@plato-ostrava.cz

Lucia Devečková
+420 705 939 976
lucia.deveckova@plato-ostrava.cz

Operation


Economist
Aneta Skulinová
+420 739 679 429
aneta.skulinova@plato-ostrava.cz

Accountant
Iva Studená
+420 605 287 326
iva.studena@plato-ostrava.cz

Visitor service
Tereza Hendrychová, head
+420 702 206 099
info@plato-ostrava.cz

Facility manager
Radim Tomašovský
+420 737 859 781
radim.tomasovsky@plato-ostrava.cz

Technician
Michal Janošec
+420 739 279 185
michal.janosec@plato-ostrava.cz

Technician / Facility manager
Lubomír Kovářík
+420 739 853 769
lubomir.kovarik@plato-ostrava.cz

Visual identity of PLATO, Octopus Press and website
Radim Peško & Tomáš Celizna Tomáš Celizna & Radim Peško

In 2022, the renovated heritage site of the municipal slaughterhouse in the centre of Ostrava has become the permanent seat of PLATO. The exhibition space spanning over five halls covers an area of 1,370 m². The author of the reconstruction, architect Robert Konieczny and his studio KWK Promes, offered a solution that makes it possible to rotate six walls and open the building from all sides. The interior also features a hydroponic lettuce farm in the café area, emphasising the importance of ecology and local (plant) production. The interior was designed by architect Yvette Vašourková. The slaughterhouse building served its original purpose from 1881 to 1965; abandoned in the 1970s, it kept dilapidating and was declared a cultural monument in 1987.

Architectural design of the slaughterhouse conversion: Robert Konieczny and KWK Promes Studio
Interior design: Yvetta Vašourková
Investor: City of Ostrava
Total usable area: 2,840 m²
Exhibition area: 1,370 m²
Café: 250 m²
Storage area and depository: 70 m²
Total area of the gallery and the lot: 11,100 m²
Conversion of slaughterhouse to gallery finished in: 2022

Public space surrounding PLATO:

The openness of the institution and the building will also be reflected in the green space of almost 9,000 m², designed for PLATO by permaculture designer Denisa Tomášková, which is being built on the site. The result will be a garden and park founded in autumn 2022. Caring for the green spaces and developing them further has become an important theme for PLATO.

Investor: City of Ostrava
Authors: Robert Konieczny and KWK Promes Studio, MS-projekce s.r.o.
Vegetation adjustments: Denisa Tomášková
Cooperation: PLATO and Městský ateliér prostorového plánování a architektury (MAPPA)
Paved areas surrounding the building: 8,976 m²
Park and garden founded in: 2022

PLATO, a city-funded organisation of the City of Ostrava, was established in 2016 as a successor to a grant project (2013–2016), which used the gallery of the Gong Hall in Dolní Vítkovice and the premises of Trojhalí Karolina. After a year of activity as Office for the Arts in a small temporary space on Českobratrská Street (2017), we moved to the former hobby market (2018–2024). Since 2022, our headquarters is the building of the reconstructed historical slaughterhouse.

Between 2018 and 2024, PLATO operated in the former Bauhaus home improvement store in the center of Ostrava, where it had nearly 5000 m² at its disposal for exhibitions, programs, and educational activities. This was a temporary location until the surrounding historical slaughterhouse from the late 19th century was renovated, which became its permanent residence in the fall of 2022. From the same year, 2022, when we moved our main activities to the new headquarters in the historical slaughterhouse, the space was primarily used by other institutions, schools, platforms, communities, and individuals until the end of June 2024. More than 200 artists, over 60 institutions, platforms, and communities, hundreds of schools, and thousands of visitors passed through the space. The owner of the building, the City of Ostrava, has long-term plans for new construction here.

Opening and closing: 11/4/2018–30/6/2024
Concept of the space and its usage: Marek Pokorný, Linda and Daniela Dostálkovy, Michal Novotný, Jakub Adamec, and Edith Jeřábková
Visual identity: Tomáš Celizna and Radim Peško
Exhibition space: 5,400 m²
Total usable area: 6,160 m²

More at page dedicated to PLATO Bauhaus

The premises of PLATO is rented in exceptional cases only.

PLATO Ostrava
city-funded institution
Porážková 3395/26
702 00 Ostrava CZ
ID NO: 71294538
Data mailbox ID: c953qqh
posta@plato-ostrava.cz

Bank account: 115-2926620237/0100
Transparent bank account for donations: 123-0032140227/0100