The City of Prague, in cooperation with the University of Applied Arts (UMPRUM), has created a pilot project entitled “Prague through the eyes of students”, intended to revive public spaces in the city. In the coming months, various views of Prague will be presented to the public through posters graphically conceived by students of the UMPRUM Graphic Design and Visual Communication Studio.
In cooperation with UMPRUM, ten graphic motifs were created in the Studio of Graphic Design and Visual Communication under the leadership of Petr Krejzek and Richard Jaroš. A selection of graphics will be presented by Prague through the autumn and winter in selected locations. The students were inspired by music, nature, their own childhood, architecture, the Czech language and, in general, things that surround people in everyday life, but are often overlooked.
“I would like to thank all the students for their incredible commitment and I look forward to further collaborations that may take place within individual city districts,” said the Prague city councillor for education, Antonín Klecanda. “We have talented students, so let’s use their potential to the fullest. I dare to say that this project will raise a huge wave of enthusiasm and open the doors to other projects that we will be very happy to support.” He added that the city is also cooperating with Charles University in other fields.
“I see this event as a great initiative that will give us an insight into the world of young talented artists from the School of Applied Arts, who will thus have a unique opportunity to present their works right in the centre of Prague,” added Jiří Pospíšil, Prague’s Deputy Mayor for Culture. “In this way, they will not only get the attention they deserve, but also contribute to the revival of the Advent and winter atmosphere in the heart of the city with their non-traditional graphic artworks.”
Sára Rašovská, who was inspired by urban nature and everyday topics that surround her, is one of the student artists who will present her work as part of the project. In her work, she experiments with combining different techniques and conceptual approaches, and her interpretation of the urban environment was based on the text of Waldemar Matuška’s ‘Song about Prague’, written by Petr Rada.
Sergei Gavroche will also present his work, which depicts the metropolis in a multitude of geometric shapes and patterns and refers to a unique national architectural direction from the beginning of the 20th century – rondo cubism. Meanwhile Terezie Puršlová turns to her own inner self in her works and, by returning to her childhood, approaches topics related to public space, which acquire new meaning for her over time.
The cooperation with UMPRUM’s artistic and industrial fields, which include architecture, design, liberal arts, applied arts, graphics and the theory of art history, is sponsored by UMlab – a creative laboratory coordinating the academic sphere with partners from the private sector, local government, state administration and the non-profit sector. The purpose of UMlab is to establish cooperation leading to research projects with potential for use in practice.
The City of Prague’s goal is to pay tribute to the architectural, cultural and historical wealth of the city with its distinctive style, as well as the Czech language. The pilot project follows on from the Memorandum on mutual cooperation between the City of Prague and UMPRUM, concluded at the beginning of 2022. At the same time, the city plans to reach out to other educational art institutions in the future who are interested in contributing to the revitalization of public space.
