Page 27 - EXPOTIME!Sept2017

Museums in Eastern Europe

Kafka and his relation to females. For all who want to diver deeper i9nto Franz Kafka's personality, this part of the exhibition
offers unexpected details. Photo: Museum

self transformed into a bug. Prague was a city of old se- This climate fascinated Kafka and had, as the exhibition
crets, obscurancy and magic where nothing was obvious. shows, a magnificient effect on his work: he called
Prague “a dear little mother with claws"with an over-
whelming past and an unsatisfying present. The city
caused an atmosphere of a foggy threat which Kafka
transforms in his tales into distress and fear.

Kafka‘s showed with his own works his connection to
Prague as existential space: „His diaries and voluminous
correspondence with family, friends, lovers and editors
bear witness to this influence. Our aim is to explore the
city, seeing it from Kafka’s point of view. An exclusively bi-
ographical or merely chronological approach would not be
enough; the challenge lies in condensing the principal con-
flicts in the life of Kafka in Prague, guided by the writer’s
own views. This means joining Kafka on his descent into the
depths of his city, adapting ourselves to his sensorial range
and cognitive register, becoming involved in a gradual dis-
tortion of space-time ‒ in short, agreeing to an experience
where everything is allowed except indifference." 3

Imagination
The second section in the museum is called “Imaginary
topography“. This section deals with the places in Kafka‘s
Anonymous (the author never disclosed his identity):
Czech writer Franz Kafka. tales. In general, Kafka gave no names to the places in his
Source: Wikimedia Commons/Archiv Klaus Wagenbach narrations which was a part of his literary concept. “The
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EXPOTIME!, issue August/September 2017