Wish consists of two columns between which five steel cables are stretched. Letters of the alphabet hang from the cables, which visitors can manipulate to form various five-letter words in a vertical formation. The interactive installation encourages viewers to engage in literary playfulness or to leave a message for the next visitor. That visitor can in turn replace that message with their own, thus the content of the Wish is constantly changing.
This intermedia intervention by Dušan Zahoranský – an established sculptor and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague – thus creates a dialogue between the sculptural structure itself and the viewer. People have left messages in public spaces since time immemorial and theWish installation draws on this spontaneous form of communication without drifting into vandalism.
The installation Wish was created in 2015 for the ProLuka outdoor gallery in Prague, produced under the curatorial direction of Denisa Václavová and Krištof Kintera in collaboration with the 4+4 Days in Motion festival. The interactive object was subsequently installed in the central atrium of the Motol Hospital in Prague (2019); on Masaryk Square in Jeseník (2021); and near Šediviny in the Orlické Mountains (2025), as part of the sculpture symposium Landscape Furniture, Sculptures in the Landscape II, organized by the Schule Cultural Center.
The installation on Velké náměstí loosely builds on the concept of the exhibition The Art of Interaction (2025–2026) that took place here at the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové, which encouraged viewers to actively engage in the process of perceiving and creating works of art.
DUŠAN ZAHORANSKÝ (b. 1972) is an established sculptor and educator. In the 1990s, he was among the key creators on the Slovak art scene combining video, photography, and sculptural techniques. Since 2003, he has been a permanent fixture on the Czech art scene with a creative approach characterized by a synthesis of traditional sculptural craftsmanship with conceptual methods. The installation is based on the artist’s long-term analysis of the relationship between linguistic structures and the cognitive processes of an individual. The artist believes that from an early age verbal symbolism and one’s native language fundamentally shape our abstract thinking and the way we construct the surrounding world in our minds. Art helps us expose manipulation, as well as discover and enjoy new ways of sharing thoughts and emotions.
The exhibition was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the Statutory City of Hradec Králové.
