“I have to admit that when I first saw the model, I almost fainted. In the end, I liked the rabbit. I even married someone there once, and to this day people meet at the rabbit,” Miroslav Brabec, mayor of the Pilsen 1 municipal district in 2014, does not hide his pride in his part in the existence of the pink rabbit in Pilsen na Lochotín.
That’s when it all started. The city district donated 500,000 CZK to the University of West Bohemia for the realization of three statues in Lochotín. The Panopticon of Adam Trbušek, at that time a student at the Faculty of Design and Art Ladislav Sutnar, also won the competition. The pink rabbit is the only one of the three objects selected by the expert jury to have survived to the present day.
A pink rabbit eating a man as a memento
“That sculpture is inspired by Francisco Goya, he had a sense of threat, with the painting of Saturn devouring his son he showed the fear of oppression, of what was going on. I had a similar feeling about what is happening today in terms of not only consumerism, but also what brings it into the world and what keeps it going. Various marketing tricks, such a game that takes place against the common man,” Panoptika author Adam Trbušek said to Czech Radio a few years ago.
Since 2015, when the sculpture was installed, it has had a rather stormy fate. A number of Lokhotín residents protested against her, and repeated polls always decided her stay in place by a narrow margin of votes. Vandals vandalized it several times. Over time, it significantly deteriorated and waited a long time for repair. This happened in the fall of 2023, the rabbit got a new coating, thanks to the use of nanotechnology more resistant to corrosion, the solar lamps in the eyes were replaced by phosphorescent material. The restoration of the Panopticon was carried out at its own expense by the University of West Bohemia, which subsequently transferred the statue, located on the city property, to the property of the first district of Pilsen free of charge.
In the future, it will be easier for tourists to get information about the pink rabbit
ÚMO Plzeň 1 promised not only to continuously maintain the sculpture, but also to bring it closer to visitors to the city. The first step in this direction should be an information board with a QR code designed by students of the Pilsen Faculty of Art and Design. The pink rabbit could get her for her 10th birthday.
Are you interested in how the Panopticon was born step by step in the studios of the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art of the University of West Bohemia? Listen to this episode of Pilsen attractions.
