The Regional Tourism Organisation of the North-East of Slovakia together with the Prešov Self-Governing Region inaugurated a mobile gallery presenting the St. Mary's tradition in the Prešov Region and Lesser Poland, as well as in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship. It will be open to the public until the end of July on the Main Street in Prešov in front of the St. Nicholas Cathedral.
Portable outdoor installation made by three artists from Prešov - Štefan Šoltis, Patrik Vrábeľ and Michal Kačmár, who use various painting techniques.
"Thanks to the technical and visual proximity of our painting practices, we achieved, to combine the individual paintings into a coherent, aesthetically clean and logically connected interesting whole. Each of the artists has chosen depictions that are close to his or her technicalartistic possibilities, but on the exhibition area they look like one whole," explains Michal Kačmár.
The gallery includes churches and places of pilgrimage in their natural surroundings, a map with roads connecting these destinations of religious tourism, crowds of pilgrims, images of people praying, St. John Paul II, the Virgin Mary, abstract depictions of prayers and love. The exhibition presents a total of ten pilgrimage sites, six on the Slovak and four on the Polish side (Levoča, Litmanová, Ľutina, Gaboltov, Hraničné, Krásny Brod, Dębowiec, Stara Wieś, Kalwaria Pacławska and Krosno).
"Depicting the deep tradition of pilgrimage tourism in two countries, this gallery is assembled from a metal structure on which up to 27 panels of paintings can be installed by patented insertion. The gallery is 2 m high, 10 m long and 2 m wide.2," explains Martin Janoško, Executive Director of KOCR Northeast Slovakia.
The mobile gallery is part of the international project of the Interreg V-A Poland-Slovakia programme called St. Mary's Pilgrimage ("Light from the East"). Its aim is to create a unique tourism product - pilgrimage tourism, which will connect pilgrimage sites on the Slovak-Polish border. The project is jointly implemented by 13 institutions, which include municipalities, organizations and parishes, including KOCR. The Prešov Self-Governing Region represents the leading partner in the project.
The gallery was unveiled by Milan Majerský - President of the PSK, Krzysztof Strzałka - Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Poland in the Slovak Republic and Ján Hudacký - Honorary Consul of the Slovak Republic in Prešov.
"This flagship project of the PSK is exceptional and reflects the growing trend in pilgrimage tourism. Our activities have the ambition to start tourism in this area, which has not only a tradition but also a huge potential in the border region. We are therefore developing the infrastructure of Marian pilgrimage sites and connecting them with other undiscovered corners of the Prešov Region, to offer tourists and pilgrims much more - experiences, getting to know the region and the sights in the surroundings, and moreover, spiritual refreshment, perhaps even reflection. This open-air gallery also presents a traditional theme in a visual language in an unconventional way, and I believe it has a chance to appeal to a wide audience." Milan Majerský, the chairman of the Prešov Self-Governing Region, said at the unveiling of the gallery.
The very concept of the project is based on the pastoral letter "Light from the East", in which John Paul II rarely distinguishes between the Catholic and non-Catholic Christian East, thus emphasizing that they share one and the same common heritage, the same common tradition - liturgical, spiritual, juridical, disciplinary and theological.
Several activities have already been carried out within the project. Infrastructure in the form of lighting, sound system, benches, gazebos were built at four pilgrimage sites in Levoča, Litmanova, Ľutina and Gaboltovo, where more than 830 000 EUR were invested. A feasibility study has already been completed with the definition of several potential tourism products on the St. Mary's Route, which should be implemented in the coming months.
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