Enter the Room: Prague City Gallery's new exhibition encourages visitors to explore the role of games in our lives
Enter the room and become part of the game
Games are no longer merely a leisure activity; they have evolved into a language, a culture, and a vital component of art. Principles of gaming are increasingly integrated into the works of an emerging generation of artists, who utilise these concepts to reflect on the world around us, re-examine the boundaries of human identity and help us envision alternative futures. Enter the Room, presented by Prague City Gallery at the Stone Bell House from 28 March to 14 September 2025, continues the tradition of the Biennial of Young Artists, which took place in this space from 1994 to 2010.
The exhibition transforms the gallery into an extended gaming field, creating a dynamic "playground" that evolves depending on how visitors interact with it. "The exhibition invites visitors to get actively involved and think about finding their own role in a changing world," explains Sandra Baborovská, the author of the exhibition. The project underscores the growing interconnection between the digital and physical realms, reflecting on how gaming elements permeate contemporary art. While the artists draw on established formats of moving images, performance and gallery installations, they deconstruct in them the possibilities of game narratives and mechanics.
Visitors will encounter works that explore the overlooked yet ubiquitous connections between humans and their digital extensions. The exhibition is based on the assumption that the previously important boundary between human and technological frameworks never existed. The combination of these post-humanist assumptions and gaming principles then invites the general public to reconsider their existing understanding of reality or to refine that understanding further.
The title Enter the Room refers to a metaphor that is based on the similarity to some gaming terrains in which the style of storytelling changes with each room you enter. In the same way, the visitor to the exhibition can progress through the observed section of the scene and discover the diverse approaches and forms created by the artists represented in the exhibition. The doors themselves, which subdivide the space of the Stone Bell House and whose visuality also refers to the gaming environment, are a site-specific intervention by the designer of the exhibition and game artist Vojtěch Radakulan.
Game as a Space for Critical Reflection and Vision of the Future
The exhibition is arranged on two floors. On the first one, the installations mainly concern the field of ecology and speculations regarding the alternative futures of our civilisation. On the second floor, the exhibition critically analyses gaming principles as such.
Environmental grief and responsibility for the future world are the main themes of the French-Dutch duo Eloïse Bonneviot and Anne de Boer who allow players to explore environmental change and species relationships in Tracing a Seeping Terrain (2023). Natalia Sýkorová and Valérie Dinková depict the post-apocalyptic reality of a post-flood world in their work their calls echoing through the flood (2024-2025), while Sýkorová and Berlin-based set designer Frederik Britzlmayr address environmental grief and the possibilities of collective regeneration in their site-specific video installation Brood – Stranger's Vial – Womb (2024–2025). The video installation Brood – Stranger's Vial – Womb and the work of the art collective BCAA system (No Blade of Grass, 2021) are the last works displayed on the first floor of the Stone Bell House. Both of them are based on recordings of so-called LARPs (Live Action Role Play) – a gaming principle balancing on the border of prescribed scenarios and improvisation.
While the aforementioned works envision the future with a certain amount of melancholy, others treat the same theme with ironic detachment. In Little Curies (2024–2025), Vojtěch Radakulan hyperbolically draws attention to the long-term risks posed by radioactive waste, which is invisible yet will fundamentally impact future generations. The No Fun collective's installation Colossus (2024–2025) builds a fictional world after the collapse of capitalism and experiments with alternative models of society.
The tarot, one of the oldest analogue games in the world, is the theme of three works in the exhibition. In Ultimate Spread Logics (2022–2025), a digitised version of the tarot created by artificial intelligence, Filip Hauer and Phillip Kolychev link random algorithms to images of global crises, offering an ironic take on our ability to predict the future. Ondřej Trhoň's Millennial Tarot Simulator (2023) addresses the uncertainties and existential anxiety of the millennial generation in the context of work, media and the economy. The Berlin-based OMSK Social Club's The Living Virtual Theater (2020) uses the principle of the tarot as a tool for collective storytelling and intuitive decision-making.
The deconstruction of gaming principles is explored by Tomáš Moravanský (INSTITUT INSTITUT) with his Carpet Stories IV and the Herdek collective, experimenting with interactive storytelling. Jan Boháč, Viktor Dedek and Jonáš Richter in their installation In the Shadows of the Main Character (2024–2025) discuss the phenomenon of the supporting game character and its autonomy, thus questioning the boundary between the player and the passive observer.
All of the works, which the visitor can become a part of, not only reflect the current crises but also explore possible futures – sometimes dystopian, sometimes full of new possibilities. In any case, they invite the viewer to actively participate and question established social structures. "I think that linking gaming principles with current issues opens up new possibilities to reach the younger generation and stimulate a society-wide discussion. I believe that the exhibition will strengthen Prague's position as a centre of progressive art in Central Europe. Visitors will certainly appreciate the opportunity to actively engage with the artworks and take away a unique immersive experience that goes beyond the traditional gallery experience," says Prague's Deputy Mayor for Culture, Tourism, Heritage, National Minorities, Exhibitions Sector, and Animal Welfare JUDr. Jiří Pospíšil.
Who, When, Where?
Enter the Room opens its door on 28 March and will remain open until 14 September 2025. The Stone Bell House will be temporarily transformed into a gaming field. The exhibition continues the tradition of the Biennial of Young Artists and gives space to a new generation of artists working with media and approaches typical of 21st century visual culture.
The exhibition will include an accompanying programme in the form of guided tours, a concert organised in collaboration with Radio Wave or special events related to specific works of art. The Living Virtual Theater installation by the Berlin-based collective OMSK Social Club will be activated by a facilitator several times during the exhibition. There will also be participatory sessions of the acoustic work In the Shadows of the Main Character by the artistic trio Jan Boháč, Viktor Dedek and Jonáš Richter. The interactions that take place between the incoming visitors, the artists and the installation architecture explore the possibilities of embodying the supporting game characters.
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
© Jan Kolský
Photos in print quality and all visual materials are available here
28 March – 14 September 2025
Author of the Exhibition: Sandra Baborovská
Curatorial Team: Sandra Baborovská, Martin Netočný
Exhibiting Artists: BCAA system, Jan Boháč & Viktor Dedek & Jonáš Richter, Eloïse Bonneviot & Anne de Boer, Filip Hauer & Philipp Kolychev, Herdek collective, Tomáš Moravanský (INSTITUT INSTITUT), No Fun collective, Omsk Social Club, Lukáš Prokop, Vojtěch Radakulan, Natália Sýkorová & Frederik Britzlmair, Natália Sýkorová & Valéria Dinková, Ondřej Trhoň
Prague City Gallery, Stone Bell House, Old Town Square 605/13, Prague 1
Opening hours: Tue–Sun, 10 a.m.– 8 p.m.
Entrance fee: CZK 200 full (adults) / CZK 90 discounted (students and seniors)
Tickets for the exhibition are available at the Stone Bell House or at GoOut.net.
For up-to-date information on accompanying programmes, guided tours and educational activities, please visit our web.
A catalogue of the same name as the exhibition was published and is available in the bookstore and on the GHMP website.
The exhibition programme of Prague City Gallery is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.