Lucia Bergamaschi, Contracts of Recognitions: Art Practices and More-Than-Human Rights in Europe

peer-reviewed book, 2027, English

This book presents the results of artistic research focused on how art practices can be constituted outside disciplinary and institutional frameworks in relation to ecological thinking and the rights of more-than-human agency. Based on interviews with artists, activists, and legal researchers, it maps European initiatives advocating rights for animals, plants, and ecosystems, and traces intersections of artistic practice, legal imagination, and ecological narratives. The book is structured into three thematic sections devoted to institutional fictions, the representation of the more-than-human, and relationships to territory beyond the logic of ownership.

Palo Fabuš, Chtěl bych být závislý na volně dostupném léku. Esej z mentální ekologie [I Would Like to Be Addicted to an Over-the-Counter Medicine: An Essay on Mental Ecology]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech and English editions

The book examines mental ecology as a framework for living under conditions of information surplus, cognitive overload, and environmental complexity. The author connects philosophy, media theory, and sociology with autoethnographic self-observation, analyzing shifts in subjectivity, work, attention, and “common sense” in digital capitalism. Rather than offering solutions, the text provides conceptual tools for a more sensitive and creative response to overload and uncertainty.

Lucia Gašparovičová, Únava materiálu [Material Fatigue]

peer-reviewed book, 2027, Czech

The book develops the question of how contemporary art works with materials under conditions of climate crisis, resource conflicts, and the breakdown of social and cultural certainties. It understands materiality as an active process and agent, tracing it as a changing structure that carries traces of geological, economic, and political histories. Attention is given to material’s relations to the body, space, time, wear, and labor. The theoretical layer is closely linked to the author’s artistic practice and situated within the international context of the Making and Materiality programme (Delfina Foundation, London).

Kateryna Khramtsova, Machaon

artbook, 2026, Czech, Ukrainian, and English

This photo book presents images by a deceased author who documented Kharkiv at the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as historical testimony of wartime attacks on civilians. The publication is accompanied by the text “Death of the Author,” which addresses the continued life of the work after the author’s death and the ethics of its subsequent presentation and care. 

Břetislav Malý, Technologie malby a její přesahy: Výběr a příprava podložky a podkladu pod malbu [Painting Technology and Its Extensions: Selecting and Preparing Supports and Grounds for Painting]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech

A contemporary guide to the preparation and processing of supports and grounds for painting. Alongside practical chapters devoted to choosing materials, canvas, rigid supports, walls, and primers, it brings expert perspectives ranging from conservation through avant-garde histories to artists’ own experience. Its aim is to connect concrete technological know-how with a critical and inspirational framework for contemporary painting practice.

Ivana Rumanová, Štrajk! [Strike!]

peer-reviewed book, 2027, Czech

The book examines the strike as a political tool, an organizational-social principle, and a specific visual culture, with particular emphasis on working conditions in art and culture in an era of precaritization and platformization. Drawing on autoethnographic and participatory research within the initiatives Otvorená kultúra! and Kultúrny štrajk (2024–2025), it critically reflects mechanisms of internalized liberal governmentality that are reproduced even within forms of resistance. The book connects the author’s text with texts and visual interventions by other authors to rethink how strikes and striking can be updated for the contemporary world—historically, organizationally, and aesthetically.

Pavel Ryška, Sauroprdi

artbook, 2026, Czech

An illustrated book for children at the intersection of fiction and popular science introduces an imagined species of herbivorous dinosaurs capable of regulating methane in their bodies and using it for movement. Framed as a conversation between a paleontologist and her curious niece, it connects insights from biology, chemistry, geology, and paleobotany in accessible language. The book opens ecological themes related to greenhouse gases, climate, and responsibility without giving up humor and imagination.

Tamara Spalajković, Planýrka

peer-reviewed book, 2027, Czech

The book examines the Planýrka area as a significant and complex site in the context of Brno, where architectural, social, and cultural layers intersect with ecological processes and the material reality of the place. It traces the long-term tension between planning intentions and landscape dynamics, which repeatedly disrupt attempts at urbanization while adapting to environmental and social change. Planýrka is approached as a critical territory that reveals the limits of non-inclusive planning and the problematic impacts of contemporary forms of investor-driven urbanism.

Šárka Svobodová, Bobycentrum. Vítejte v hyperrealitě! [Bobycentrum: Welcome to Hyperreality!]

peer-reviewed book, 2027, Czech

The book tells the story of the Brno postmodern phenomenon Bobycentrum, which in the early 1990s transformed the area “behind Lužánky” into a “Western-style” complex of sports, commerce, and entertainment. Against the backdrop of the personal story of investor Lubomír Hrstka and the architectural solution by the Hexaplan studio, it addresses the site’s urban contexts, postmodern architecture, critical histories of sport, and early post-revolution entrepreneurship and night-time economy. The text part is complemented by photographs and a visual concept working with period aesthetics.

Veronika Šavarová, You Just Nocliped

artbook, 2026, Czech and English

A conceptual artbook takes the form of a silent comic and, in a loop, narrates the story of moving through a liminal environment into which the narrating subject has “noclipped”—outside ordinarily accessible space—shaped by the aesthetics of the backrooms. The illustrations are accompanied by poems by Anna Beáta Háblová, created in dialogue with the image. A recurring motif is a potted plant as a quiet witness and a symbol of adapting to a space whose rules and coordinates are unstable.

Zuzana Žabková, On the Ruins of the Festival: Infrastructuring Practices

peer-reviewed book, 2026, English

A collective monograph develops the concept of “infrastructuring” as the building of supportive structures that allow artistic practice to unfold as it needs to—and at the same time understands practices themselves as structures of care, intimacy, and collective learning. It draws on long-term research into cultural infrastructures and festival curatorial work, with its starting point in the Implantieren Festival (Frankfurt) and its process-based, time-extended formats. The book is composed non-linearly, interweaving a conversation between co-authors, a glossary of terms, text contributions, and visual materials by the participating artists.

Viktória Citráková, Poezin 02

zine, 2026, Czech, Slovak, and English

Poezin 02, themed “Capitalism is not Vogue,” explores anti-capitalism, the commodification of culture, and the search for belonging. It follows the pilot issue Poezin 01, published in 2023 at the risograph studio KudlaWerkstatt, which focused on intersectionality, embodiment, and gender objectification.

Polina Davydenko, Ukrajinská levice: Dokument odporu proti ruské agresi [The Ukrainian Left: A Documentary of Resistance to Russian Aggression]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech

Co-authored by Polina Davydenko and Lukáš Dobeš, this book lies at the intersection of journalism and personal testimony. It features interviews with leftist thinkers, activists, anti-authoritarians, and unionists who voluntarily joined the Ukrainian army following Russia’s 2022 invasion, critically examining oversimplified narratives about anarchist movement members fighting on the side of the state and challenges stereotypes regarding the Ukrainian left's role in the defense forces. Complemented by the author’s photographs and travel notes from the Donetsk region, the book also provides a civilian perspective on war and the transformation of Ukraine.

Eva Jaroňová, Svět prochází člověkem [The World Passes Through]

artbook, 2025, Czech
This book of illustrations and short texts builds on the author’s previous work with zines and prints, addressing themes of environmental crisis. The poetic-activist nature of the book is reinforced by DIY risograph printing techniques, making each copy a unique original.

Martin Pfann, V pondělí zase brambory: Neviditelná topografie partyzánského hnutí na Horácku [Potatoes Again on Monday: The Invisible Topography of the Partisan Movement in Horácko]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech
This book delves into the memory of the Horácko region, where dramatic events of the partisan movement unfolded in the final years of WWII. The movement left an indelible mark on the collective memory of local farming communities. The author, who spent his early years in one of Horácko’s villages, returns to his childhood landscape, exploring its connections to his Protestant family history. He gathers oral testimonies, studies archival materials, and documents topographical features such as hiking trails, abandoned buildings, and memorials that bear traces of the past. The book is illustrated by Štěpán Brož.

Pavel Ryška, Prostředníci: Charaktery české reklamy [Intermediaries: Characters in Czech Advertising]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech
This book presents virtual advertising figures as narrative characters, analyzing their design and verbal and non-verbal expressions. It traces the evolution of advertising mascots from interwar Czechoslovakia through the era of state socialism to the reintroduction of the free market and the division of the republic. Alongside a chronological overview, the book examines artistic strategies in advertising within economic, social, and political contexts, drawing comparisons to similar international examples in comics, animation, board games, consumer product packaging, television, and online media.

Ján Solčáni, Return to Listening

peer-reviewed book, 2025, English
This book features in-depth conversations with artists, collectives, and theorists who engage with listening as a critical practice. It explores sound as a communicative tool that reveals and challenges shifting social, historical, ecological, technological, and political conditions. Positioning listening as a methodology for uncovering and interrogating power structures, the book expands the discourse beyond conventional sound studies through interviews with marginalized voices. Its methodological framework integrates autoethnographic approaches and listening-based theories, offering nuanced insights into how sound shapes ways of perceiving the world across diverse geographical and cultural contexts.

Lenka Klodová, FaVU: Odcházení [Leaving]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech

The book examines the moment of leaving the position of studio head, focusing primarily on teaching staff at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. It traces the conditions and starting points for successful art pedagogy and documents the complex entanglements of professional and personal relationships that structure studio teaching and shape the particular character of leaving it. At the moment of leaving, internal motivations and other factors come into play alongside relationships within studio collectives, in a broader context related to the status of the artist and the economic position of professional artists. The book also looks at leaving a teaching position more broadly as a transitional state that should be accompanied by appropriate rituals so that the transition can be properly lived through and subsequent trauma avoided.

Michal Konečný, Tamara Divíšková: Můj život [Tamara Divíšková: My Life]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech

A biographical publication presenting the life and work of sculptor Tamara Divíšková, a student of Vincent Makovský, within the context of Czechoslovak art in the second half of the 20th century. Drawing on interviews with the artist, it follows her work in relation to state commissions, institutional constraints, and the social conditions of the period, introducing ceramic works exhibited at home and abroad as well as realizations in public buildings, including Brno’s Lesná. The biographical framework is complemented by a critical reflection on state commissions, the influence of institutions and the Communist Party, associational activities, and work on the margins. Special attention is given to the position of women in art, professional and friendship networks, and everyday survival strategies within the cultural sphere of state socialism.

Barbora Lungová, Partyzánky s motyčkou v zelené městské krajině: (nejen) umělecké intervence spontánní zahradnické povahy ve veřejném prostoru [Partisans with a Hoe: Guerilla Gardening in Public Space]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech

This book is devoted to guerrilla gardening as a form of (not only) artistic intervention in public space. Using twelve selected sites in Brno, it connects artistic and anthropological research and follows how spontaneous cultivation activities transform residents’ relationship to the urban landscape. It focuses on actors’ motivations, strategies of spatial use, and the ecological and social impacts of these interventions. The book builds on the long-term research, artistic, and organizational activities of the authorial collective and emphasizes local knowledge and shared care.

Kateřina Žák Konvalinová, VLNA [Wool]

peer-reviewed book, 2026, Czech

The book summarizes knowledge about domestication, breeding, and socio-economic conditions that shape sheep husbandry and the typology of sheep wool in a local context. At the same time, through scholarly texts, speculative storytelling, and analysis of artistic realizations, it asks about the sustainability of wool as a material for contemporary art. Drawing on posthumanism, new materialism, and feminist frameworks, it emphasizes the complexity of the relationship between humans and domesticated animals. It is based on interviews with experts and artists, and complements a local perspective with examples from Spain and Belgium.

Adam Vačkář, The Heracles of Hogweed

peer-reviewed book, 2026, English

The book addresses the complex relationship between people and giant hogweed, a plant described as invasive and dangerous. It traces its migration from the Caucasus to Europe, media constructions of fear, and political decisions connected to its eradication. The book links botanical, cultural, and social perspectives and shows how hogweed becomes a symbol of ecological conflicts, historical traumas, and social inequalities.

Jan Šrámek, Kouzlo zapomnětlivosti Josepha Beuyse [The Magic of Joseph Beuys' Forgetfulness]

artbook, 2026, Czech

This authorial publication returns to a repressed episode from Joseph Beuys’s life—the plane crash in Crimea—and examines its role in building his artistic mythology. Through text and illustrations, it develops themes of memory, forgetting, and self-staging in 20th-century art. The book also introduces key principles of Beuys’s thinking and his influence on postwar and contemporary art, in a form that is accessible yet firmly grounded for a broad audience, including younger readers.

Martin Mazanec, Frederick Kiesler: Selected Writings on Moving Image, Film, and Cinema

peer-reviewed book, 2026, English

The publication collects and analyzes Frederick Kiesler’s texts devoted to film and cinematic space. It focuses on his effort to create an “ideal film space” that would arise from the specifics of film technology and differ from the architecture of traditional theater halls. The book situates Kiesler’s thinking within the context of modernist aesthetic and social principles and shows his contribution to transforming perceptions of film, the moving image, and projection space in the 20th century.