Summer School on Critical Work with Nudity brought together students and academic staff from five European art schools
At the turn of August and September 2026, the Faculty of Fine Arts at Brno University of Technology hosted the international Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) Summer School on Critical Work with Nudity, organised in collaboration with the Festival of Naked Forms (FNAF). The programme focused on critical, safeand reflective approaches to nudity in contemporary art, combining an online lecture series with an intensive in-person programme in Brno and Prague.
The online part took place from 25 to 28 August 2026 and included an introductory meeting as well as lectures by Alexandra Tamásová, Karolína Raimund and Lenka Klodová. The topics ranged from representations of female and queer bodies in contemporary painting and the documentation of performance art to the anthropological, social and legal contexts of working with nudity.
Participants joined the programme from the University of Vigo, Vilnius Academy of Arts, Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts Poznań and Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. The teaching team consisted of Lenka Klodová, Karolína Raimund, Antonín Brinda, Kateřina Olivová and Alexandra Tamásová.
The in-person part took place from 2 to 9 September 2026 and was divided between Brno and Prague. It began at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno, where workshops focused on the relationship between the body, nudity and space, as well as on shame, consent, embodiment and approaches to documenting performance. The programme also included performative experiments and collective reflection on the material created during the workshops.
The summer school then moved to Kafkárna – UMPRUM Centre for Art and Ecology in Prague, where it became part of the programme of the 12th Festival of Naked Forms (FNAF). The festival took place on 5–6 September 2026 and included a dedicated block of performances by participants of the summer school. Participants worked on collective and individual performative outputs and were divided into interconnected groups focusing on performance, photographic documentation and critical reflection. The photography group worked with analogue photography, Polaroid and digital photography, while the critics group led six discussion sessions with participating artists over the course of two days.
The final part of the programme took place back at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno and was devoted to completing practical outputs as well as to critical evaluation of the programme, questions of safety and inclusivity, and identifying suitable conditions for presenting art that works with nudity. The teaching team will continue to work with the feedback and experience gathered during the summer school, and a more extensive written reflection on the programme is also being prepared.
Summer School on Critical Work with Nudity was organised within the Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme, creating a space for international exchange, practical artistic collaboration and critical discussion about the possibilities and limits of working with nudity in contemporary art. The project was co-funded by the European Union.
More information about the programme: Summer School on Critical Work with Nudity – FFA BUT
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