Interactive exhibition with sound, kinetic and visual installations.

Featuring artists: Michael Delia, Paul DeMarinis, Eleanor Dubinsky, Martin Janicek, Jaroslav Koran, Tom Kotik, Pavel Mrkus, Petr Nikl, Ondrej Pivec, Karel Ruzicka Jr., Ondrej Smeykal, Marianna Stranska

Series of site-specific installations in which artists and children will collaborate to create experiences in visuals, sound and motion. Over the course of sixteen weeks adults and children alike will come together to stage happenings – both freeform and through a series of events, workshops, and concerts that draw upon the instinctual play’s ability to spark imaginative growth and unite disparate individuals through non-verbal communication.

In Orbis Pictus – Play Well, the Gallery of the Czech Center New York will become an artistic workshop and sonic landscape, where through direct physical contact with the artworks participants will create a symphony of light and sound. Each work is interactive – and will only operate through interaction – with the goal of having multiple participants take cues from, and play off of one another.

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Interactive exhibition Play Well at the Gallery of the Czech Center New York develops projects Orbis Pictus organized since 2006 in the Czech Republic and abroad named after one of the books by the well-known theologian, philosopher and pedagogue Jan Amos Komensky (1592 – 1670).

The exhibition is built on Komensky’s still valuable thoughts on the recognition of the world by one’s own senses, through personal experience. Komensky’s pedagogical texts, as for example, School by Play, are still greatly inspiring. We understand play as a creative ability of deeper cognition. It is a significant initiator of all creative activities. Spontaneous play enables us an open and intensive relation with the world and other people. Play is our means of communication. It is the key to our imagination and to creative strength of life. It broadens our horizons, gives us the necessary distance from oneself and the sense of belonging to a bigger whole.

Play Well is belongs among interactive exhibitions prepared in the 21st century that represent playful objects of “big children”, not only artists. Play Well has been also inspired by interactive sections of museums of natural sciences. The use of physical laws and natural energies is used in Play Well to expand imagination.

Play Well is a creative playground, artistic laboratory, encounter that cancels social, age and social barriers. The exhibition is aimed both for children and adults. The exhibited instruments and objects mean pretext for creation of the atmosphere, for initiating the dialogue among currently present players.

Play Well includes instruments for sound, move and visual plays, whose sound depend on visitors.

The symphony of the exhibition is constantly recreated on the spot depending not on individual objects but on their relations. They constitute a symbiosis of perceptions, landscape for all senses, reflection of imagination reminding us of Platon‘s cave. In this active environment visitors realize the necessity to participate in the play. They feel their forgotten child’s spontaneity.

The exhibition becomes a continuous happening. Its concept is open and predetermined to constant change and development. The connection between all the objects is their interactivity, their tactile character, inviting the active participation of the visitor.

The project interconnects various artistic forms, deletes borders between theater, music and visual arts. Live events are a part of the projects.

The exhibition will feature a robust schedule of events and workshops; all events are free and open to the public.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: Tuesday, June 26 6:30 pm – 8 pm Orbis Pictus – Play Well opening Reception 8 pm- 10 pm Solstice – a musical and visual jam session

Saturday, June 30 3 pm – 5 pm Sound and Shadow Play I – a workshop for all ages where participants will collaborate with audio and lighting installations to create an interplay of shadows and sounds. Featuring artists Michael Delia, Jaroslav Koran, Peter Nikl and Ondrej Smeykal.

Saturday, July 28 3 pm – 5 pm Sound and Shadow Play II – a workshop for all ages where participants will collaborate with audio and lighting installations to create an interplay of shadows and sounds. Featuring artists Michael Delia and Peter Nikl with additional artists TBD. 8 pm – 10pm Dance of Shadows – A musical and visual improvisational performance

Saturday, September 15 3 pm – 5 pm Journey through Sounds – a workshop for all ages that tells the story of the development of musical instruments from its most basic essence (using the body to create music) to primitive instruments and on to classical and electronic music. Journey through Sounds is a part of the Moving Sounds Festival (www.argentomusic.org)

Saturday, September 22 3pm – 5pm Perception and Imagination – The New York City-based singer-songwriter Eleanor Dubinsky will teach adults and children a musical workshop on the relationship between music and visual art. 8pm – 10pm Malý velký svět (Small Big World): A Concert Beyond Borders

Orbis Pictus – Play Well is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000, curated by Juliet Kinchin, which will take place at The Museum of Modern Art in New York from July 29, 2012 through November 5, 2012.