The photographic project captures the life of tramps in Bohemia and Moravia with the aim of documenting the state and form of the oldest and most numerous distinctive subculture, which is a purely Czechoslovak phenomenon that does not exist anywhere else in the world. Libor Fojtík worked on the project for more than seven years. He focused not only on portraits, landscapes, and folk creativity, but also on architecture and the form of tramp sites.
Inspired by the Woodcraft League, Scouting, and the American Wild West, tramping in former Czechoslovakia evolved into a movement characterised as a tolerated alternative culture due to the socio-political conditions of the time. On the one hand, Jack London’s novels use the term ‘tramp’ to describe a person who does not respect generally accepted social conventions and lives on the margins of society. On the other hand, tramping is a movement based on friendship, community, a romantic relationship with nature, and resistance to consumerism and bourgeois living. In the context of changes to the social system and political situation, the movement underwent fundamental changes as well as a revival, and still exists in some form today. The project resulted in a photographic book, an exhibition, and a short documentary.
– Tomáš Pospěch
Libor Fojtík (1977, CZ) first came into contact with photography at an art school in Ostrava. In 2011, he graduated with a Master’s degree from the Institute of Creative Photography at the University of Silesia in Opava. Focusing on social documentary and reportage photography, he has photographed in many countries, including New Zealand, the USA, Mongolia, Vietnam, Japan, Russia, India, Pakistan, etc. In 2008, he began working as a photojournalist at the ISIFA photo agency in Prague, a Getty Images partner. In 2009, he started working for the Hospodářské noviny newspaper. As a documentary photographer, Fojtík addresses important current issues. Occasionally, he uses creative staged photography and shoots in colour with digital technology. With the Absurdistan – My home collection, he won the first prize in the FRAME 2010 competition, an annual international photography competition for professional photographers and photography students from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. He won first prize in the Everyday Life category at the Czech Press Photo 2010 and was involved in selecting 60 finalists from around the world for the international LUMIX photofestival in Hanover for young photojournalists.
Fojtík won third prize in the Photo Annual Awards 2014 with his Czech Tramps collection. He has published several books, including Cheesy Jokes, published by Blurb in 2011, and Tramps, published by PositiF in 2020 (both in Czech and English). His book Felix Kolmer – Slib won first place in the Fiction category of the Most Beautiful Czech Books 2021 competition. He now lives in Prague, Czech Republic.
PARADAJS PHOTO GALLERY
PARADAJS PHOTO GALLERY is a new presentation space dedicated to photography. Through periodic exhibitions, it materialises the long-term research and archiving activities of the virtual web magazine PRADAJS PHOTO MAG and extends the presentation possibilities of the international festival of photography and related media PARADAJS PHOTO FEST with a year-round programme.
PARADAJS PHOTOGALLERY specialises in professional research, theoretical reflection and presentation of Slovak and international photography. The dramaturgy of the gallery, which was founded in 2025, is focused on chamber exhibitions of Slovak and Czech photographers of the younger and middle generation, whose current work is characterised by a unifying theme: the depiction of ephemeral phenomena of the relationship between man and cultivated or wild nature. The common theme of the photographic exhibitions highlights the ecological turn in contemporary art as one of the most important social contributions of contemporary photography.
PARADAJS PHOTO GALLERY is located in the premises of the Bethlen’s House, a part of The Central Slovak Gallery in Banská Bystrica. The intention of both institutions is to build paradajs – synergistic relations between independent and established culture and to strengthen professional cooperation in the field of presentation and research of visual arts in Slovakia.
– Zuzana L. Majlingová
The founder of the Central Slovak Gallery is the Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region.
The project Paradajs Photo Gallery has been supported using public funds provided by Slovak Arts Council.
The Slovak Arts Council is the main partner of the project.