Pilgrim

Jiří Zemánek

The Pilgrim Potulná univerzita přírody / Wandering University of Nature is an association founded in 2009. It adopts a holistic approach to personal development, relationships with nature and the fostering of human culture. It connects deep ecology with art, spirituality and cosmology, and its founding is directly related to a practical pilgrimage which the project’s founder, Jiří Zemánek, began in 2000. Zemánek also focused on similar themes in his work as a curator, most importantly as part of the exhibitions Divočina: příroda, duše, jazyk / Wilderness: Nature, Soul, Language (2002) and Od země, přes kopec do nebe: O chůzi, poutnictví a posvátné krajině / From Earth to Hill to the Heavens: On Walking, Pilgrimage and Holy Landscapes (2005), dedicated to Karel Hynek Mácha and Caspar David Friedrich. Among his activities there are annual, multi-day treks through the Czech landscape connected with the lives of famous poets and other cultural figures. One of the central sources of inspiration has been Karel Hynek Mácha, whose wanderings the group traces through the areas around Kokořín, the Bohemian karst, and Krkonoše (Giant Mountains). The first public “Small Mácha trek” took place in May 2003, taking a route from Mělník, through Kokořín and Houska to Bezděz. This trek changed slightly in subsequent years, and has finally become an annual tradition. The “Great Mácha trek” goes on the footsteps of Mácha’s pilgrimage from Prague to Sněžka and has taken place since 2005. The association also organizes the Wandering University of Nature Summer Seminars, which variously deal with sustainable approaches and take place in the summer at various remote locations.