Housing Society

How is the material legacy of communism perceived in post-socialist Slovakia? The broader populace considers it a symbol of the regime. Architecture built during this period is disregarded, destroyed and replaced with lower-quality buildings; furniture is dumped in trash bins at Slovak panel housing estates. Damian Cehlarik uses in-depth interviews, archival documents, and material ethnographies of domestic interiors to explore communist nostalgia, heritage and erasure. In Housing Society, a standard cabinet model found in almost every living room in panel house apartments is redesigned to represent ordinary things in a broader context, separating the discord for the regime from the rejection of its materiality.