Veronika Soukupová (*1997) is an art and design historian, a graduate of a bachelor's program at the Institute for Art History at Faculty of Arts, Charles University (her thesis focused on the relationship between fine art and Czechoslovak tapestries of the 1960s) and a master's program on art history and theory at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM). She wrote her master's thesis on the contexts of the work and activities of textile artist and theorist Jaroslava Vondráčková during the 1940s and 1950s. She is continuing her research on Jaroslava Vondráčková at a broader scale in her doctoral studies. She also focuses on textile art, design, and fashion of the 20th century, their institutional backgrounds, and the socio-political contexts of their development.
In addition to her own research, she is involved in occasional curatorial projects (such as the Local Wool at UM Gallery), participates in grant research projects at UMPRUM, prepares articles for UMPRUM ON-LINE, contributes to the creation of an independent magazine dedicated to contemporary art NOVY ZINE, and collaborates with young designers to help them theorize their work.
Jaroslava Vondráčková: Textile Artist and Theorist
Jaroslava Vondráčková (1894–1986) is a textile artist, journalist, writer, and theorist of textile art and lifestyle. The scope and duration of her activities were extraordinarily wide. Throughout her life, she was involved in various social and political movements, a member of art groups, and a collaborator of textile artists Božena Pošepná and Otti Berger. During the First Republic period, she established herself as a designer of functionally oriented textiles and as a theorist of the "new era and new forms", recommending a focus on simplicity, and utility as well as the social implications of things, rationalization of production and consumption. After the war, she continued these efforts as part of the initiative to cultivate the material world and textiles. Vondráčková always emphasized the importance of textiles in the life of people. This project seeks to explore the multi-layered work and significance of Vondráčková with the aim of reintegrating it into the cultural history of the 20th century, where it has so far been only fragmentarily represented. The work attempts to address the subject within a more comprehensive framework of discursive dimensions, social and political contexts, human and non-human relationships, and institutional backgrounds.
