Žižkov | 1994-1996
98 images Created 1 Feb 2019
In 1994, I moved to Prague to study photography at the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU), five years after the Velvet Revolution. By accident, I found my first apartment in Prague 3 - Žižkov, the neighborhood where I still partly reside after all those years.
The idea for the project was to document the changes in the neighborhood, and I took photographs between 1994 and 1996. As I had just moved from Germany to the Czech Republic, I was unable to speak Czech, and not many people spoke a language I could use.
I always carried a piece of paper with me on which was written, in Czech, "Hello, my name is Björn, and I am a student from FAMU. Can I please take your photograph?" Often, people simply walked away, but some didn't, and that's how the whole project started.
Later, I made small prints for the people who had allowed me to photograph them, and while giving those photographs to them, I asked if they would allow me to photograph them at home.
After almost 30 years, I scanned the old negatives and made a new edit of those images, which is quite different from the previous one.
The idea for the project was to document the changes in the neighborhood, and I took photographs between 1994 and 1996. As I had just moved from Germany to the Czech Republic, I was unable to speak Czech, and not many people spoke a language I could use.
I always carried a piece of paper with me on which was written, in Czech, "Hello, my name is Björn, and I am a student from FAMU. Can I please take your photograph?" Often, people simply walked away, but some didn't, and that's how the whole project started.
Later, I made small prints for the people who had allowed me to photograph them, and while giving those photographs to them, I asked if they would allow me to photograph them at home.
After almost 30 years, I scanned the old negatives and made a new edit of those images, which is quite different from the previous one.
