Presented as part of the PhotoSaintGermain festival at the Czech Center Paris, the exhibition Joy and Retreat highlights the young generation of Czech photographers and the diversity of their views on the contemporary world.
Fourteen leading figures of contemporary Czech photography—including Marie Tomanová, Bára Prášilová, and Hana Knížová—take part in Joy and Refuge at the Czech Center, located in Paris’s 6th arrondissement. The project was carried out in collaboration with Galerie Teleport, curated by its founder Štěpánka Stein, and in partnership with the Czech perfume house Pigmentarium.
This group exhibition offers an immersion into the world of the young generation of Czech photographers, shedding light on the richness of their practices and the diversity of their perspectives. Rejecting any pre-established theme or form, the project above all celebrates the plurality of contemporary approaches.
While photography long served to immortalize happy moments, its relationship to reality has, over time, grown denser anchored in social, critical, and sensorial dimensions. Joy, far from having disappeared, now expresses itself more discreetly, in a more intimate, subtle, and nuanced language. It invites a deeper reading of the works, attentive to the emotions they carry. At the crossroads of documentary, artistic creation, and applied arts, the approaches presented in the exhibition deliberately blur traditional boundaries. This hybridity, characteristic of the contemporary scene, reveals a fertile, ever-evolving territory for exploration. A significant space is also devoted to fashion photography a field of experimentation where photography, design, theater, and performance interlace which powerfully illustrates the growing porosity between disciplines and artistic practices within a living, open dialogue.
Pigmentarium X Martin Žák: Perfume as a Vector of Memory
Pigmentarium, a Czech perfume house, is partnering with the exhibition to infuse the project with an additional dimension: an olfactory emotion. Since its founding, Pigmentarium has collaborated with artists to offer visual translations of its perfumes through photographic cycles or sculpture. For Joy and Refuge, the young sculptor Martin Žák has created a scented wax sculpture. His work will slowly consume itself, transforming over time and accompanying the photographs with a subtle olfactory trail.
Artists on view
Tomáš Jiráček
Michaela Karásek Čejková
Vladimír Kiva Novotný
Hana Knížová
Tereza Kopelentová
Wlasta Laura
Viktorie Macánová
Vendy Mlejnská
Bára Prášilová
Eliška Sky
Kateřina Sysová
Marie Tomanová
Vojtěch Veškrna
Tereza Zelenková
and Martin Žák, creator of the scented wax sculpture
Around the exhibition
On Friday, November 7 at 6:00 pm, a guided tour will take place, with the curator and artists also in attendance.
Joy and Refuge
Through 30 November 2025
Czech Center Paris
18 rue Bonaparte
75006 Paris
01 53 73 00 22
