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Tomáš Vobořil
Project presentation
The Subcarpathian Ruthenia context in itself
April 16, 2025, Double room 1114, hotel Intourist Zakarpattia

The artistic research project is based on research of archival materials (films, photographs) from the period 1919-1939 from the area of Transcarpatia and filming with witnesses and archivists in Ukraine. The aim of the project is to subject the archival film prints and photographs from the Czechia, Slovakia and Ukraine to a postcolonial reading, cataloguing and making them available (in the process of repatriation).
Central European countries such as Czechia are marked with the term colonial exceptionalism, which means that even though the countries didn’t have any colonies they still benefit from the global colonialism economically and culturally. The main question of the project is if we could see some resemblance of colonialist practices also in the short period of time when Subcarpathian Ruthenia was part of Czechoslovakia in 1919–1939.
The research project has already started with the interpretation of the photographic and ethnographic work of well-known Czechoslovak ethnographer Vojtěch Suk, however the main focus of the research nowadays is on the archival film prints, amateur and experimental filmmaking.

Tomáš Vobořil is an artist, photographer, filmmaker and film programmer from Prague (Czechia). He received bachelor degrees from Film Theory and History and also from Photography in Prague where he currently studies at Centre of Audiovisual Studies (FAMU). His focus is primarily in analog photography and film, experimental filmmaking, socially engaged art, archival practices, sound art and postcolonial studies. He is a programme director of the Marienbad Film Festival (CZ) which focuses on experimental filmmaking and he is a member of industrial techno, dark-wave band OŁM and performative-poetic group STVO.

The SNRA residence draws attention to the role of culture and art during the russian-Ukrainian war, aims to implement institutionally critical projects related to cultural heritage (tangible and intangible), development of artistic-cultural institutions.

Tomasz Woborzyl’s participation in the SNRA residence program was made possible by his individual financial co-support from SGS FAMU – Student Grant Competition for Artistic Research

Photo credit: Petro Ryaska