Damián Cehlárik (24 September 1996) is a designer and artist based between Slovakia and Netherlands. In his collaborative and research-based approach, he investigates historical, cultural, political, and economic influences, transforms them into visual storytelling, and instigates debate.

Cake and Cabinet

How is the material legacy of communism perceived in post-socialist Slovakia? The broader populace considers it a symbol of the regime. Architecture built during this period is disregarded, destroyed and replaced with lower-quality buildings; furniture is dumped in trash bins at Slovak panel housing estates. Damian Cehlarik uses in-depth interviews, archival documents, and material ethnographies of domestic interiors to explore communist nostalgia, heritage and erasure. In Housing Society, a standard cabinet model found in almost every living room in panel house apartments is redesigned to represent ordinary things in a broader context, separating the discord for the regime from the rejection of its materiality.