I am talking about equality, empathy, and reacting to the world around me.

These recent works came about as a reaction to the murder of two young men by another young Nazi in front of a gay bar in Bratislava, Slovakia. One a non-binary, the other a homosexual.

I arrived in Czechoslovakia 31 years ago and so, despite the separation of the two countries, I see no difference or distance. This attack happened next door.

Two diptychs, with the transparent silhouette of two arms tattooed with the derogatory nouns in four languages, swear words that we have to hear since we were little. Two empty spaces of people who are no longer here.

Gay in English, Buzna in Czech, Viado in Brazilian Portuguese and Homo Homo in Latin.

Tattooed like concentration camp prisoners, they remind me of my Jewish origin. This weight we carry, I transform into decoration, engraving between two layers of 3mm flat glass, adding metallic foils that during the fusing process, react in color and graffiti that reinforces the engraving.

The first diptych, is very delicate and the arms are very noticeable, in the second diptych, the marks of the shots open holes in the glass and deform the lines.

Fused, slumped, engraved

Filip Švácha

float glass, metal foil, graffiti.