Česky
To raise awareness about the lives of people with an outlet, the Czech ILCO prepared the PytlíkART project, painting on ostomy bags. By exhibiting artwork on ostomy devices together with stories of their authors, not only from the ranks of ostomates, we show the public what an ostomy is and what an ostomy bag looks like.
"When my doctor told me 20 years ago that I was going to have an ostomy, I was 28 and couldn't imagine how I was going to go on living. I had a one-year-old daughter at home. I had mixed feelings: fear, embarrassment, hopelessness, despair... I live in a small village in eastern Bohemia. I didn't tell any of my friends at first because I was ashamed. Although the beginning of the outlet was not always easy, I managed. I stuck to the motto: DON'T REPEAT, DON'T GIVE UP, AND MOVE ON! 3 years ago, I started working for Czech ILCO and I found that the word ostomy still evokes negative feelings in people's subconscious and is seen as a stigma. Be it the stoma patients themselves, their surroundings or the public. It's time to change that," explains the motives behind the exhibition's creator Jitka Svobodová, who now talks openly about life with a stoma in lectures for the general and professional public.
"For some of us, an ostomy has saved our lives," Svobodová further emphasises, adding that the aim of the awareness-raising project is to raise public awareness and show that it is possible to live a normal life even with an ostomy. "By visiting the exhibition, you will support our goal and together we will break down myths about ostomies," she urges visitors.
The exhibition of non-traditional art on ostomy bags will be held in the main building of the HOŘOVICE HOSPITAL from 1 November to 27 November 2022 .
The exhibition is part of the project "YES WE CAN" financed by the EEA Grants 2014-2021 from the Small Grant Scheme of the Health Programme.
The patient organization Czech ILCO has been helping ostomates since 1992 to solve medical, social and psychological problems associated with the return of the ostomate to normal life, often even to work.
