(Chomutov, September 2025) You May Dream in HOT opens to the public on Saturday, 20 September, as part of the Try Walking in May Shoes initiative. The show is rich in stories—Canadian artists have developed their visions of the Ore Mountains and the surrounding region for the spaces at Dresdner Straße 26 in Hohenstein-Ernstthal. Much like the local native son Karl Friedrich May once wrote about North America before ever having been there.

One of the exhibiting artists, aj jaeger from Vernon, British Columbia, adds a powerful family thread. It will be her first visit to her mother’s birthplace—her mother once had to leave what was then East Germany.

“I didn’t actually know much about Karl May, but the fact that he was born in the same town as my mother—and in a place I had never been—felt like a great opportunity to go to Hohenstein-Ernstthal and to Chemnitz and to walk in my mother’s footsteps,” aj said in her studio, standing beside the large canvas she is preparing for the new exhibition space run by Silberbüchse e.V.

“The art scene in Vernon and across the Okanagan Valley is surprisingly diverse and strong—something visitors to the exhibition will see for themselves. The fact that, in the middle of British Columbia, we found an artist with roots in the very town for which we were preparing the show might sound like a magical coincidence. For me it mainly proves how collaborative and connected the local scene is—without that, we would never have found aj jaeger,” explained Tereza Koranda Dvořáková, the exhibition’s curator from the Chomutov association Ženský spolek and the creative duo Redpond.cz.

aj jaeger and Tereza Koranda Dvořáková, Vernon, Headbones Gallery

aj jaeger will arrive in Hohenstein-Ernstthal two days before the opening. Members of Silberbüchse—above all the historian Wolfgang Hallmann—will accompany her as she traces her family history; he has prepared extensive information and documents for AJ that confirm the family’s ties to the region’s textile tradition.

The work in progress for You May Dream in HOT “has to do with migration, memory and myth. It’s about what we leave behind, what we can rediscover or newly create, and what we carry with us in our hearts. That’s why I’m working with the motif of a large heart,” the artist says. These are also the themes that connect her to her mother: in 1988 aj moved permanently to British Columbia with her husband and sons, where she began living—and making—entirely new stories.

And, as phone calls with her brother—who lives in Frankfurt—have shown, the family’s direct connection to Karl May is in fact quite strong.

“My brother has 75 Karl May books at home—he’ll bring them to Hohenstein-Ernstthal and donate them to the Silberbüchse association—and they may even become part of my appearance at the opening,” aj jaeger concluded. Together with fellow Canadian artists Destanne Norris and Krystyna Laycraft, she has been invited to a ceremonial Saturday lunch by the local mayor, Lars Kluge.

Mirek Koranda, Redpond.cz