Stano Masár: Zjavujúca sa pamäť / Všetko najlepšie z Pohody!, 2026  ^SK

Stano Masár: Emerging Memory / Best Wishes from Pohoda!, 2026

PNS is the abbreviation for Poštová novinová služba (Postal News Service) — a place where, until not long ago, you could buy contemporary press, postcards, stamps, and tobacco. The "péeneska", as the kiosk was commonly known, formed part of public space: at public transport stops, on the platforms of train and bus stations, along the way to the city centre or the shopping mall. These became places where people bought newspapers with the latest news, magazines with popular columns, or publications with entertainment content. Metaphorically speaking, it was a kind of offline internet.

For the Visual Stage Pohoda 2026 edition, I have prepared what is, in its own way, a continuation of the project realised here in 2019 and 2023. Once again, postcards are being sold in the old newspaper kiosk — filled in and stamped, they can be dropped straight into the postbox "around the corner from the PNS". Following the "moving memorial" to the Velvet Revolution of '89 (There Was No Pohoda Under Socialism, 2019) and an appeal to our future (A Greeting to My Tomorrow Self, 2023), the current project is celebratory. The festival turns 30, and so it is a fitting occasion to look back on some of the iconic artworks realised as part of the Visual Stage Pohoda over the past 10 editions.

In this "retro UFO" or "time capsule" — in short, in the PNS — you can choose from postcards in the current edition as well as older ones that have remained in the kiosk from previous visits of the PNS to the Pohoda festival. You thus become part of the festival's celebrations, and by sending a postcard you can delight a loved one or friend — with a work of art and the words: BEST WISHES FROM POHODA!