GUTTA

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Photographs from the project Archive by L.F., Markéta Slaná, Filip Kartousek

It is a multi-layered project centered on the person of "Amazon Gutta", a woman from the Yoruba people, performing with a group of "Amazons of Dahomey", which in September 1892, arrived in Prague. Gutta contracted typhoid fever here, and died after a few days. Her solemn funeral was a big spectacle, which took place on September 21, 1892 and was widely reported by press around the world. She was buried then in the Olšany cemetery. Two years later, her remains were excavated by Jindřich Matiegka and placed in the university collection, from where they found their way to the Hrdlicka Museum of Man, where they remain to this day.

The project is presented in the form of a performance, a sound walk in Prague space, an essay and an intervention in the space of Hrdlicka Museum of Man. Crumbs of the project also appear in the works of researchers and scientific presentations prepared for the following years. In this way GUTTA is an interdisciplinary project, that crosses boundaries of art, science and activism being a part of a bigger process of decolonization in Eastern and Central Europe.

The speculative narrative based on the work presented in the Labyrinth Gallery in Lublin is also available online. 

Trailer for the "Gutta" performance

Project team:
Zuzanna Berendt, Petr Dlouhý, Marcin Dymiter, Ludomir Franczak, Agáta Hrnčířová, Anna Majewska, Sára Märc, Ida Ślęzak

With the help of:

Sára Arnstein, Johanna Berg, Dominika Czarnecka, Filip Herza, Ewan McLaren, Felix Koch, Margaret Amaka Ohia-Nowak, Clemens Radauer, Tim Sandweg, Louise Steinman

Project partners: Cross Attic/Praha, Studio ALTA/Praha, Pracownia Kuratorska/Cracow, Bazaar/Praha, Labirynth Gallery/Lublin, Schaubude/Berlin
Project created within the VARP PA program financed by Visegrad Fund