Kristína Seidlová
The Architecture of Community Building
When: October 14 – February 28, 2026
Where: M. A. Bazovský Gallery, Trenčín
Opening: October 14 at 5:00 PM
Curator: Veronika Marek Markovičová
Media partners: Fotonoviny, Paradajs Photo Mag
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Friday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
A photographic project about the Children’s Town in Trenčín-Zlatovce. About its construction, functioning, and personal experiences. About community inclusion of the socially disadvantaged. What integration challenges does the city of Trenčín face as a whole today?
Kristína Seidlová’s exhibition The Architecture of Community Building follows on from her book project Forgotten Memory (2023), in which she comprehensively examined the causes behind the emergence of the unique project of the Children’s Town. Between 1974–2005, it represented a family-type children’s home as well as a complex that, in addition to upbringing, also provided space for everyday life and education. By combining archival images with her own photographic research, as well as interviews with former residents and architect Peter Brtko, the author analyzes the interaction between people and their environment – from the intimacy of interior spaces to the public spaces of the campus. At the beginning of 2025, she reflected on this theme as part of her retrospective exhibition at FORMAAT Gallery. The Architecture of Community Building, together with the accompanying program at the M. A. Bazovský Gallery in Trenčín, updates the topic of the Children’s Town twenty years later, in the context of community inclusion of the socially disadvantaged and the integration challenges of the city of Trenčín.
Kristína Seidlová (1996) graduated from the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (2024). She currently focuses on architectural and urban photography. Her projects deal with the memory of place, the influence of architecture, education, and upbringing on people. She complements spaces with photographic portraits or figures. Thematically, she delves into history and confronts it with the present. In 2024, she received an honorable mention for her book Forgotten Memory at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ostrava. For her latest work Boundaries of Inclusion, she was awarded a Grant from the City of Bratislava within the Slovak Press Photo Foundation (2024). She currently also works as a teacher at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Trenčín.
Veronika Marek Markovičová (1983) studied Film and Theatre Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc (2008), the Department of Photography and New Media at AFAD Bratislava (2014), and completed study stays at the University of Vienna (2005) and Prague’s FAMU (2013). In addition to fine art photography, she also engages in curatorial and educational projects and writes about photography. She is the founder and curator of the FotoFoyer gallery at KKC Hviezda in Trenčín, where together with Peter Marek she organizes and hosts PhotoMondays – live gatherings about photography. Together with Jan Viaz, she co-founded www.paradajsphoto.sk – an online magazine about photography, where she is responsible for the articles section. She regularly publishes in FOTOnoviny, collaborates with FORMAAT Gallery, as well as with various domestic and international photography festivals (OFF Bratislava, FOTOpotulky, Rotlicht Vienna, etc.). She lives in Trenčín.
