CGD

Tell me this: how many place guides do you have in your bookcase at home? And how many of them are about the city you live in?

I have Prague listed as my place of temporary residence, so I counted a total of six such temporary guides; but only one of them is illustrated: the Peripheral Guide to Prague which, for some reason, is getting spellchecked as the Perfect Guide to Prague.

Two years ago in January, musician and illustrator Tomáš Staněk found himself without work and sliding towards anxiety. He looked for escape in better places and at some of his favorite spots. He initially just drew the places themselves without intending for the drawings to be collected in book form. But this therapy of recording, ellipsis and reminiscence through realistic drawing opened up a layer of memory and returns, and last year, the illustrations were finally published as a book.

Staněk started doing graffiti when he was thirteen years old, so he moves around the city differently, often at different times and for other reasons than your standard pedestrian. This movement is palpable in the drawings that accompany his complete guide. This is not a movement of the hunter but of someone who is looking for more than just a place for creating his work or seeing the work of his colleagues. It is rather the movement of the flaneur who has the time and courage to stop where other people quickly pass. He also knows that such a pause cannot take forever, as everything around him changes so quickly.

By the time they are published, most guides have long lost their value and rather harm the place they set out to describe. Staněk cautiously guides his readers to cultivate their own curiosity by leading us to places where the only coffee, beer or snack we will get is found at the bottom of our knapsack. He is preparing us for a time when the only thing certain will be the uncertain fate of just such a peripheral world.

Tomáš Luňák