On Thursday, September 10, a webinar presenting the Ticket to the New World project took place in collaboration with the New York Czech Centre. The project depicts the extraordinary life stories of both internationally renowned and not so famous Czechoslovak artists who were forced to leave their home country at the beginning of the Second World War and ended up settling down in the United States, and their influence on the New World’s art scene. It is a multimedia project which will continue as an eponymous exhibition project in the Bohemian National Hall in New York. The exhibition will open in the fall of 2021.

The webinar was hosted by Marek Hilde and Eva Heyd, the curator of the project and a CNT project manager, while three guests appeared on the webinar as well: Julia Hammid, Véronique Firkušný and Ladislav Zikmund Lender. Julia Hammid and Véronique Firkušný recalled their exceptional fathers – photographer and documentarist Alexander Hammid and piano virtuoso Rudolf Firkušný. Ladislav Zikmund Lender, a Czech architecture historian, talked about the life and career of Jaroslav Polívka, a Czech architect and engineer who cooperated on several projects with the famous Frank Lloyd Wright. The viewers also had the opportunity to watch a short movie produced by the Czech National Trust as part of the webinar.

More information about the project can be found on the New York Czech Centre website here.

The webinar recording is available online: