Z vlastního rozhodnutí, Installation artwork and streetlight in Vinohrady, Prague, Czech Republic.
Z vlastního rozhodnutí is an art installation combined with a working streetlight, placed at the corner of Legerova and Vinarská streets in the Vinohrady neighborhood of Prague. The piece takes the form of a single upright pole that looks like an ordinary city light at first glance, but its shape and proportions set it apart from the standard street furniture around it.
Sculptor Krištof Kintera sketched the upward-bent lamp in 2005, but work only began in 2009. The memorial was unveiled on 23 June 2011 before about 40 people, including opponents such as Prague 2 councillor Zdeněk Lochman, who held a sign reading "Nesouhlasím s pomníkem sebevrahům." In 2022 a construction firm moved the lamp onto the adjacent slope, making the riveted plaque hard to reach.
The Czech name means "By One's Own Decision"; the plaque riveted to the pole at eye level reads "Memento mori – to those who took their own lives at this place of their own decision." The number of the dead was to be added, but estimates range between 250 and 350, so it was left out. At the 2011 unveiling, Prague 2 councillor Zdeněk Lochman held a sign reading "I disagree with a monument to suicides."
The lamp stands in Folimanka park below the Nusle Bridge, not at a street corner. Its light points upward toward the bridge rather than lighting the ground. In 2022 it was moved onto the adjacent slope, so the riveted plaque at eye height is now hard to reach and read; a skatepark replaced the quiet zone in front of it.
Although the work looks like a completely ordinary street pole, it is officially part of Prague's city lighting network. This means the city maintains and operates it technically, just like any other light pole in public space.
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