Initiatives

Hanka and Martin Jelínek

Hanka and Martin Jelínek live in the small village of Krásné u Sněžného. They met at the Department of Education at the Faculty of Education of Palacký University in Olomouc.

The KUŠ association

The KUŠ Association for environmental and multicultural education has for a long time been working in the region of Vysočina, focused on alternative methods of education working outside of school institutions, and making use of contemporary art techniques, placing a strong emphasis on activism and the environment.

Tereza Říčanová

Tereza Říčanová is an illustrator, painter, cow milker and cheesemaker, as well as a graphic designer. She also produces theater performances for children, leads numerous workshops, teaches at the Jihlava-Helenín art school, and dances as part of the Kozí Kraviny performance (staged under the auspices of the Ponec theater and the Tanec Praha festival).

Třešťský průměr

Třešťský průměr is an unusually active and creative group of peers from Třešť. The group was created by joining two similarly-focused theater troupes – Natvrdlí and Tylovi vrazi.

Ticho46

“Order and form is tolerable only in the presence of disorder and anti-form.… Klub korealistických aktivit (or ‘cca’) is a club which was created to give people at least one striking encounter with art …

Další iniciativy

Eko iniciativy

Themes

Protest Brzkov 7.09 2014, foto Olga Kališová

Protest Brzkov 7.09 2014, foto Olga Kališová

Uranium Extraction in Vysočina and Citizen Protests, 2022

Edvard Sequens

The following text consists of excerpts from a discussion about the threat of the renewal of Uranium extraction in Vysočina. The discussion was a part of the 2016 Frontiers of Solitude exhibition in The Vysočina Regional Gallery in Jihlava.

Libor Krejcar - Krajina kolem Heřmanova Městce I (z cyklu Sypané obrazy), sklo, kov, dřevěný odpad, 80 x 120 cm, 1999

Libor Krejcar - Krajina kolem Heřmanova Městce I (z cyklu Sypané obrazy), sklo, kov, dřevěný odpad, 80 x 120 cm, 1999

Železné hory

The Landscape, Geology, Myths and Artists of the Iron Mountains

Lenka Dolanová

The territory of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands largely consists of hills, uplands and forests. It is a region on the border between Bohemia and Moravia, between Prague and Brno, which has historically been fragmented into different administrative areas.

Contexts

Region

Vysočina

Prepared in collaboration with
Petr Kovář

The Vysočina region is particular in its “invisibility.” On the one hand, the region lies in the very center of the Czech Republic, even while the administrative center of Jihlava still lacks a direct train connection to Prague. It is dense with many nearby villages, but the towns remain small, sparsely inhabited, and thus hardly offer any significant “centers” in the proper sense of the word. The region as a whole has the second lowest population per square kilometer in all of Czechia. This fracturing of culture is amplified by the composition of the land itself: Almost the entire Vysočina region consists of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, also called Vysočina, but these do not correspond to the regional borders. The same goes for the regional capital of Jihlava — rather than being a natural center or partner, it is more like simply the best choice for a regional capital. While the eastern part of the region tend to look toward Brno, the southwest is rather more connected to South Bohemia. The neighboring parishes are part of the dioceses of both Brno and České Budějovice. Much like the name Czech-Moravian Highlands, a hyphenated conjunction, likewise the whole region is a patchwork, and each place lives in itself, remaining rather incomplete. The character of this land therefor translates into the identities and projects of its people — is a tradition of independent people being original, both alone and in a community, creating local centers of positive deviation which often spill over outside of the regional frame. And yet, they may remain completely unknown in the village just over the neighboring hill.

While there is distinct lack of a collective history for the region as a whole, this network of cultural islands builds on the legacy of Josef Florian’s Stará Říše, Bohuslav Reynek’s Petrkov, Ivan Martin Jirous’ Prostřední Vydří, or the works of Otokar Březina, Jakub Deml, Antonín Chittusi and Zbyněk Hejda. It also builds on the evangelical communities whose prayer-houses were built after the ratification of the Patent of Toleration — although these too rather stood apart from the centers, having no manifest steeples or bells; a bit for itself and rather incomplete. The current, widely shared themes present possible alternatives that focus on various ways to involve the people in this assemblage of art projects in aiming to change things in the region.

Vysočina is a hotbed for similar community projects and amateur activities. For example, the Třešťský průměr group is content to travel from village to village, rather than expand their activities to other cities and regions. Matěj Kolář from the KUŠ community provides education and extracurricular activities to children, adolescents and families in accordance with a sustainable and ecological lifestyle, which the group combines with art activism — the invisibility of Vysočina is also currently being leveraged by lobbyists intending to make nuclear waste disappear into deep storage. Aleš Kauer is a poet and musician, but he gives other poets and musicians an opportunity to be heard at Jihlava’s festival Kvílení, publishing bibliophile editions in his Adolescent _publishing house. Precious artefacts and forgotten churches with fourteenth-century paintings are tended by the _Přátelé podlipnických kostelů who have been offering guided tours, lectures, workshops, music and theater performances for the last twenty years. There are many similar individuals and societies, but in this splintered land, it is often difficult to find them and their works. No brochures are available to promote these projects in the information centers of Jihlava, Humpolec or Bíteš. But there is always someone who knows about these initiatives, including members of the more visible regional institutions — the Regional Gallery in Jihlava, as well as the local Divadlo Otevřených Dveří (DIOD), or the art zone 8smička in Humpolec, which builds on the private initiative of local entrepreneur Zdeněk Rýzner. Everything is close here, but often hard to access.

Cartography of (Eco)systems: Black Edition

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