Vladimir Kabelik
Film director Photographer Teacher
Photographer and filmmaker Vladimir Kabelik spent his young adult life immersed in the rapidly changing political climate of Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s. Stalinist days of brutal communism were ending, culminating with a transfer of power to a new reformist leader, Alexander Dubček, in January 1968. Following the first signs of democracy, Soviet-led armed forces invaded the country on August 21, 1968.
Kabelik’s documentary, Generation ’70 (1978), later captured the work of young Czech and Slovak photographers. It was heavily censored, and, eventually, banned altogether. Targeted by the government, Kabelik entered a state of “low employment”. During this period, he wandered throughout Prague, camera in-hand. In 1982, Kabelik escaped to Toronto via Austria and Switzerland. In an unfamiliar place, he began photographing spaces that looked familiar to him. Through his lens, the streets of Prague and Toronto appear as one continuous place.
Kabelik later taught in Sheridan’s Media Arts Department and Advanced Television and Film Post-Graduate Program for over 30 years.
(Source: galleries-sheridan.ca)
