Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art

This is a synergy between seemingly distant fields: between art, design and science, between history and the future, between tradition and current challenges, between unique creation and mass production, between the local and the global.

How do we influence the city and the region?

  • We use the local cultural and historical context both in our current work and in the creation of strategic partnerships abroad.
  • We positively shape the socio-cultural environment of the city and the region, bringing visual quality, innovative solutions, opening dialogue and supporting communities.
  • We cooperate with a wide range of entities on real contracts, thus cultivating not only the public but also the private sector.
  • We bring prominent artists and other professionals to the region, as well as promising students from across the country and abroad.

Where are we heading?

  • We are expanding the circle of cooperating personalities from practice and theory, from the country and abroad.
  • We are strengthening our position on the Czech and international scene. We focus on Europe and the global community.
  • We strive for excellence in design comparable internationally.
  • We are building a varied and cultivated environment where aesthetic and moral values form a whole.

What you may not have known about our faculty

Only 10 tram stops separate our Ladislav Sutnar Gallery in the centre of Pilsen and the Incubator Gallery in the Sutnarka building. The GAFA exhibition space in the DEPO2015 creative zone and other venues are used for the presentation of students’ works. In addition, we regularly organize exhibitions in cooperation with other entities.

In July 2023, the 52nd week of the summer school took place, a whole imaginary year of a series of parallel ArtCamp courses attended by the general public from Pilsen, the Czech Republic, Europe and overseas. In 17 years we have realized 495 courses for 5346 candidates.

Jan Dienstbier

What makes us stand out

  • Profiling creative activities towards interdisciplinary projects that naturally connect with different scientific disciplines, especially in the field of technical, natural and social sciences. Key research topics are mobility and sustainable design.
  • It is a unique concentration of artists from many disciplines and places in the country who shape the young generation in creative dialogue.
  • Outcomes of artistic creativity that are positively evaluated by experts at home and abroad, and at the same time understandable to the general public.
Did you know that…

In the competition for the World’s Best Comic Japan International Manga Award 2021, the publication IOGI by the students of the Media Illustration Studio under the direction of Václav Šlajch won bronze? The Ambassador of Japan, H.E. Hideo Suzuki, came to present the diplomas and letters of thanks to the awardees.

Presentation of awards by the Ambassador of Japan

Artistic creative activity

In the Silent Book Contest 2022, dedicated to an original illustrated and previously unpublished book project created and realized exclusively through narrative illustrations, Kateřina Illnerová, a student of the Comics and Illustration for Children studio, won with her book Lost in Porcelaind 1. place, announced in May 2022 at the Salone Internazionale del Libro in Turin.

With his redesign of the Alfa Romeo, Jonáš Jagerčík took second place overall and first among students in the DTM Evoluzione 2022 competition in Genoa; the exhibition also included models by other students of the Industrial Design Studio, Ondřej Adamec and Bao Quoc Tran.

Graduate Martina Havlová won the ON Award 2022 at the OFF Bratislava Festival for her photographic book My Coat Caught in the Blackberries.

In the competition Ro Guiltlessplastic, Milan 2022 our graduates Eliška Knotková, Marie Nina Václavková and Filip Mirbauer won 1st place for their collection of sofas for public space.

V soutěži Dobře navržená kniha – začněme s dětmi 2023 získala 3. our graduate Serafima Kosikava, the honorable mention of the jury went to students Barbora Burianová and Klára Pavlovcová.

Ondrej Adamec took third place with his Blatto Buggy in the ENVO Next Move 2023 competition.

In the Most Beautiful Czech Book of 2022 competition, Uyanga Undarmaa was awarded second place for her book Ode to Metamorphosis, Kamila Tučková took third place thanks to her Quin letter patterns.

As part of the National Student Design Award 2022, Kateřina Puncmannová won the GRAND Award, Marto Kelbl won the Albatros Media Award and Karolína Pucholtová won the Exit Design Award.

Marcela Vostřelová

Cultural and historical context

  • The Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art develops the legacy of two important Pilsen natives – Ladislav Sutnar and Jiří Trnka.
  • Our work is also aimed at restoring and making attractive cultural and historical monuments such as the Valeč Castle, the Premonstratensian monastery in Teplá or the monastery in Chotěšov.

LADISLAV SUTNAR PRIZE

Opening dialogue and supporting communities

  • The Faculty cooperates with a number of entities and communities, such as the West Bohemian Gallery in Pilsen, the Gallery of the City of Pilsen, the West Bohemian Museum in Pilsen, the Pilsen Philharmonic, Czech Radio Pilsen, the Bishopric of Pilsen and the Jewish Community of Pilsen.

Sutnarka for Ukraine

  • An initiative of students and staff of the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art has prepared a benefit sales exhibition in 2022 to support people affected by the war conflict in Ukraine in the premises of the Moving Station and the faculty itself.
  • The individual studios (their leaders, assistants and students) also organized weekly workshops for refugee children from the Pilsen integration centre Most. The faculty continued the project in 2023.

We are expanding the circle of cooperating personalities

In the last two years alone, the following personalities from Europe and overseas have visited the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art:

Eitan Bartal

  • Israel: lecture, exhibition.

Alain Le Quernec

  • France: workshop.

Noah Becker

  • USA: lecture as part of Shapes: Venus, residency, exhibition.

at the hybrid conference Shapes: Venus

  • Daniel Huber, Austria: lecture.
  • Ľuba Wehlend, Slovakia: lecture.
  • Steven Heller, USA: online lecture.
  • Caitlin Condell, USA: online lecture.
  • Cynthia Trope, USA: online lecture.

Pekka Loiri

  • Finland: teaching at ArtCamp, exhibition.

residency and exhibition at the Ladislav Sutnar Gallery

  • Kateryna Tsyhykalo, Mariia Ralemska, Alyona Tokovenko: Ukraine.

Akira Yanagiha

  • Japan / France: lecture and workshop (Media Illustration Studio).

within the Jiří Trnka International Symposium

  • Iku Dekune, Japan: winner of the Jiří Trnka Prize, lecture and workshops.
  • André Letria, Portugal: laureate of the Jiří Trnka Prize, lecture and workshops.
  • Viera Anoškinová for the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava – winner of the Jiří Trnka Prize: lecture.
  • Fanuel Hanán Díaz, Colombia: lecture and workshops.
  • Emese Révész, Hungary: lecture.

as part of the awarding of the Ladislav Sutnar Prize

  • Stuart Haygarth, Great Britain: laureate of the Ladislav Sutnar Prize, lecture.
  • Jens Lutz for ZKM Karlsruhe – winner of the Ladislav Sutnar Prize: lecture.
  • Andreas Muehlenberend for Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar – winner of the Ladislav Sutnar Prize: lecture.

as part of the International Photographic Symposium Boundaries

  • Thomas Greenough, Scotland: lecture and workshop.
  • Michael Mersinis, Greece / Scotland: lecture and workshop.
  • Peter Pflügler, Austria / Netherlands: lecture and workshop.
  • Mariia Ralemska, Ukraine: lecture and workshop.
  • Ross Sawyers, USA: lecture and workshop.
  • Stefan Vanthuyne, Belgium: lecture and workshop.
  • Oxiea Villamonte, USA / Netherlands: lecture and workshop.

Within the framework of the ArtCamp Summer School

  • Kristýna Španihelová, Slovakia.
  • Shizu Ara, Japan.
  • Ryszard Kajzer, Poland.
  • Bart Van Dijck, Belgium.

International Summer School of Art