Particip No. 111, demonstration of the method: "think round, act square" (Particip. No. 111, demostración ded método: "piensa en redondo, actúa en cuadrado")

Tomáš Vanek observes how small, non-pretentious, repeating interventions or well-known situations, when highlighted from an unexpected angle, can change perception. He calls his performancebased interventions connected to a certain place or situation "particips". In Particip No. 111 Vanek makes use of giant balloons (150cm in diameter) which, after being inflated then burst, will serve as starting points for new objects/paintings stapled to the wall, the facade of the building or elsewhere. The artist regards this act as the demonstration of the method: "Think round, act square".

Tomáš Vanek / 1966 / Pokátky. Lives and works in Prague. Since 1998, the artist has been using the term "particip" to describe his works. Particips make use of symbiotic and parasitic norms and relationships in the sense that they attach themselves to current situations that are part of the status quo, and which, by virtue of their very familiarity, exist on the periphery of our everyday perception. Particips make these marginal zones visible by adjusting themselves to and in a specific space, one that has been gazed upon by countless eyes before without provoking the slightest reaction. Particips participate in these places and situations by their very existence, which at the same time is also suspect. Particips emerge through envisioning the whole situation in a given place, taking into account all its qualities and relations.