Markéta Gebrian is a Prague-based digital artist and an architect of virtual reality spaces in the social platform, NEOS VR. She studied architecture and art at the Technical University in Liberec, Czech Republic, and currently, she is continuing as a doctoral student at the Faculty of Architecture of Czech Technical University in Prague. Markéta's international study and work experience includes prominent architectural offices, such as NL Architects in Amsterdam, MADMA/MAXWAN Architects in Rotterdam, Jean Nouvel Ateliers in Paris and Steven Ehrlich Architects in Los Angeles. Her digital artwork has been displayed in the DOX Center for Contemporary Art in Prague, as well as abroad in Basel, New York, Zürich and Miami. In April 2021, after turbulent preparations and a lot of uncertainty, Markéta and her family departed for a study trip to the College of Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Writing her dissertation on "Artistic and Architectural Spaces Through Virtual Reality," Markéta hopes to spend six months in the U.S. designing 3D spaces in virtual reality in the Mixed Reality Lab of the Department of Art and Design.
I am excited we will soon move to the USA, as a Fulbright Scholar, I will do my visiting research at North Carolina State University in Raleigh for six months. But also, nothing is for sure lately, pandemic crisis hits the Czech Republic hard in winter 2020/2021. The deferral of the Fulbright Program is the choice of many recent Fulbrighters, but I don’t lose hope... Two months before our planned departure to NC State in Raleigh I searched for housing because I am moving with my family. I looked on Google, apartmentsfinder.com and individual websites of the housing complexes near the NC State Campus. This took me a while to decide where to live and I had precise criteria for what I was looking for. I wanted to be in nature, near NC State campus, near supermarket, near some shops, near bus stops, 30min by bike away from our school maximum. I was so lucky to be in the WhatsApp group with other Fulbrighters at NC State. I got in the group through Fulbright Gateway Orientation. I met there Fulbrighter Anita from Paraguay, she helped me to join this group where I could ask all my questions about Raleigh. Other Fulbright students confirmed that the housing that I choose exists.
It is 9 am, the 22nd February 2021 and I am peacefully filling out my J1 visa application online. My cell phone rings, it is from the hospital in Pardubice, they just announced my that my 94 years old grandmother died because of COVID-19.
I am paralyzed, sad, and stressed. I am the only one in the family who can manage to organize a funeral and everything that goes with it. Me, my husband Adam, and my son Filip 5, we are supposed to leave in Mid-March 2021 to the NC State in Raleigh. I must deal with family issues first. The whole situation is as stressful and chaotic as much as it can be. My husband is supporting me so I believe we can go through this and finally leave for the USA. The US embassy is closed, and we are not sure if we will be the governmental exception and receive our J1 and J2 visas. The Czech Government closes all cities because of the pandemic, people can’t leave their towns.
On the 5th of March, we wait outside of the embassy with Ms. Semancová from the Czech Fulbright, we need our passports and visas. I received the last invitation letter from Professor Derek Ham from NC State. Can we leave Prague? I look for plane tickets, I choose Amsterdam and KLM airlines, plus Delta airlines. I install the app to be able to follow all changes in COVID testing rules before boarding and changes of flights. Because every day there are different rules. We must be tested 24 before departure with antigen test and 3 days before departure for PCR tests. It costs about 7000 CZK for our family.
I am paralyzed, sad, and stressed. I am the only one in the family who can manage to organize a funeral and everything that goes with it. Me, my husband Adam, and my son Filip 5, we are supposed to leave in Mid-March 2021 to the NC State in Raleigh. I must deal with family issues first. The whole situation is as stressful and chaotic as much as it can be. My husband is supporting me so I believe we can go through this and finally leave for the USA. The US embassy is closed, and we are not sure if we will be the governmental exception and receive our J1 and J2 visas. The Czech Government closes all cities because of the pandemic, people can’t leave their towns.
On the 5th of March, we wait outside of the embassy with Ms. Semancová from the Czech Fulbright, we need our passports and visas. I received the last invitation letter from Professor Derek Ham from NC State. Can we leave Prague? I look for plane tickets, I choose Amsterdam and KLM airlines, plus Delta airlines. I install the app to be able to follow all changes in COVID testing rules before boarding and changes of flights. Because every day there are different rules. We must be tested 24 before departure with antigen test and 3 days before departure for PCR tests. It costs about 7000 CZK for our family.
Photo 2: Petr Klán and a student from the Faculty of Information Technology of Czech Technical University in Prague as avatars in NEOS VR online. (Virtual reality with a colleague and a robot embedded into the 3D environment.) I booked a hotel in downtown Raleigh for few days of quarantine after our arrival to the USA. I must take care of the household in Prague before we leave, plus the house of my grandmother and our future flat in Raleigh. I had to turn on the electricity and water in our new flat after we paid the deposit online in our new empty flat in Raleigh before we left Prague. In Prague, we were nervous if the COVID test of our family will be negative. But we are all lucky and healthy! We quickly packed the suitcases and at 3 am 19th March we woke up, took a taxi to the airport in Prague. The airport is empty, we boarded I feel relieved. We landed in Amsterdam; I feel even more relieved. We spend hours on the plane to Atlanta, we landed, and it is so warm outside. We must go through immigration control. We are nervous, I prepare all the documents needed. I explain to the officer what I will do in the USA, about my research, virtual reality, online meetings, creative social VR platform like NEOS VR.
We passed; we are in the USA!!! I feel so happy, but we must hurry to catch the plane to Raleigh Durham airport. I feel like dancing inside, I watch some films on the plane. We landed and warm air welcomes us. Yes, we are in Raleigh finally, tired but happy calling the taxi to the hotel downtown.
We stay in the room and order food. We sleep for hours. We try to deal with our jetlag. But anyway, we feel fantastic that we made it from Prague to Raleigh and looking forward to moving to our new empty flat.
We buy sim cards, not yet phones, but the signal is working so badly with the Czech phones that we consider getting new US phones.
Our new flat is not empty totally, we have a kitchen, a dining area, a living room, a bedroom plus bathroom, one balcony, one terrace. There is an oven, a cooker, a dishwasher, shelves in the kitchen, a kitchen desk, we have a closet with a washing machine and a dryer, a furnished bathroom even with a mirror. We have no place to sleep or any other furniture. We order online in Walmart three sleeping bags, three air mattresses and a car baby seat to be able to drive with Filip on board. But we need to buy some food and dishes, we buy that nearby Food Lion supermarket. We order online a car from turo.com and we drive to Walmart. We find a camping table and folding chairs, plus some dishes and things for the kitchen, I buy some extra blankets too.
Finally, I can focus on my Fulbright program at NC State.
My program starts on 1st April and I have the first meeting with Professor Derek Ham. We agreed on a hybrid mode of our meetings. He showed me the Department of Art and Design, College of Design. The campus is amazing, full of old brick buildings and there are many trees in bloom, grass, and green areas in general. The Hunt Library is the object of my artistic interpretation and it is located near the lake Raleigh. My topic of the dissertation is Artistic and Architectural Spaces Through Virtual Reality at the Czech Technical University in Prague. During my visiting research at NC State, I will design 3D spaces in virtual reality for online meetings of avatars for education. It could be VR classes. I am educated as an architect and I become a digital artist focused on designing spaces for virtual reality environments and social VR platforms like NEOS VR. Hunt Library is an educational building, my source of inspiration because I can gain data and information for building my 3D model in VR. Raleigh weather feels like summer from April, the dress code here at the university is sporty clothes. Students have time to focus on their studies and they do a lot of sports that is why they have such great figures. I am cycling almost every day to get to the campus area, I go to the gym to swim, I study at home Blender tutorials, I prepare presentations for Professor Derek Ham from NC State. I work with NEOS VR, a social VR platform to be in VR online on the classes of my Professor Petr Klan from the Faculty of Information Technology in Prague. I and my husband are vaccinated with two vaccines, so our life is getting back to normal and we are enjoying every day in the USA.
You can learn more abour Markéta's art work here: