Object:Paradise was formed in 2018 with the meeting of Tyko Say and Jeff Milton in the Ouky Douky cafe in Prague's
Holešovice neighborhood where the two scheduled their first performance to involve characteristics of
beat poetry,
bebop jazz, and elements of
theater, involving a cast composed majority of
expats where English would be used as the
lingua franca. This event would later be recognized as the first step of the collective's push to create a space where the
poetry reading is promoted as a pragmatic performance rather than a literary event, prioritizing shared language and experience between audience and performer. On 13 November 2019, Say and Milton
self-released the collective's first album
Object:Paradise Volume 1 at their event Channels of Communication where compiled
VHS video from the Los Angeles collective
Everything Is Terrible! was projected which would later be a common
aesthetic and convention of their curations. In July 2020, the collective began their transition from hosting events in private spaces to
public spaces, specifically at their event Tunnel Vision(s) which was held in the
Starý Vítkovský tunel where three stages were erected and the performed language could be interpreted separately depending on the audience's position within the tunnel. The cast of the event was composed primarily of the
expat community of Prague and featured various acts such as
body grooming,
interpretative dance,
protest,
installation, and readings. The event would later be a critical happening in the writing of the collective's manifesto which would not only prioritize an interdisciplinary approach to
poetics, but also highlight the importance of the space in which it occurs. In 2020, the collective's second film,
Object:Praha, was released. Premiering at
Prague Microfestival and later screened at the Versopolis
Festival of Hope, the film documented scenes of
Tunnel Vision(s) as well as other happenings in Prague from 2019 to 2020. In April and May 2021, the collective had its first curated language
installation, titled
Now Showing with the New York-based
Flow chart foundation where a
curation of
texts were
projected from a high rise balcony before the
Žižkov Television Tower in Prague. The installation featured texts from eight writers: Tyko Say, Marc Fischer,
Michael Ashkin, Jason Geistweidt,
David Levi Strauss,
Kay Rosen, Max Goldfarb, and Norman Douglas. The objective of the projection, which occurred during the
COVID-19 pandemic, was to "bring poetry back to an accessible space: on the way to the store". In February 2022 the collective released their second album,
OBJECT:PARADISE Volume II, on
Seattle-based record label
Sifter Grim, featuring over 20-Prague based artists and focusing primarily on topics concerning Prague's
Žižkov neighborhood. The composition was released alongside a documentary,
Object:Praha II, on the filming of the project. In August 2023 the collective's first international language happening was co-curated by
Visegrád collectives ARS LATRANS, Poland; Slam Poetry SK, Slovakia; and ArtPortal, Hungary. The curation featured over fifty performances across Poland and Czech Republic in three events—one of them occurring on a train between
Prague to
Kraków. The event was funded by the
Visegrad Fund, and was documented in Object:paradise's fourth film
OBJECT:PRAHA : IV : Performance, Deformance, Reformance which would later be screened in the four countries. ==Releases==