Kateřina Šedá publishes a guide to the Brno Bronx

Brno - The so-called Brno Bronx is portrayed in a new guidebook as a colorful district full of contrasts. The book titled Brnox was compiled by the renowned artist Kateřina Šedá and her collaborators. It is the result of her nearly two-year exploration of the area around Cejl, which many tend to avoid and which carries the label of a socially excluded locality with a significant Romani community.

"It is a subjective view and selection, not an official tourist guide," Šedá emphasized today during the book's launch, which is accompanied by a map and a Romani calendar. The book has 500 pages and offers ten routes, each with ten stops plus one trip tip outside the so-called Bronx, but to places where its residents like to go.

Šedá invited experts as co-authors - architects, natural scientists, and historians. "But the authors are also people who live there," added Šedá. In the book, she builds on what she actively discovered or overheard in the streets, apartments, and establishments in the Bronx, where, as she admits, she also arrived with prejudices.

For example, the yellow, gourmet route is dedicated to pubs, traditional recipes, and even a school cafeteria. The orange route follows stores and services - including pawnshops, scrap yards, a sex shop, or a funeral home. Other routes focus on history, fauna and flora in the Bronx, children living in the district, or signs of rural life. Šedá was fascinated by the fact that the Bronx, bordering the center, sometimes seems more like the outskirts of the city - with comforters drying in windows, people sitting in front of their homes, and stepping out onto the street in slippers.

Brave owners of the book can venture out in the evening on the black route with key words "bars, drugs, prostitutes, romantic walk." However, the goal of the guide is not to turn the Bronx into a cheap attraction or an adrenaline tourism destination. Šedá also monitored very subtle phenomena and themes, such as children's dreams and wishes. She conducted interviews with residents of the district, the often bizarre excerpts of which she regularly published on Facebook. The book also offers suggestions for solving specific problems, such as the lack of bins and benches or vandalized mailboxes.

Publicist Aleš Palán, a co-author of the book, believes that readers will find many moments to laugh at. "However, he hopes that it will be laughter that is not mocking but rather a surprise from unexpected connections," Palán stated.

Šedá is a laureate of the Chalupecký Award. As one of the few Czech artists, she has made a name for herself abroad. She has participated in exhibitions in Kassel, Venice, Lyon, and Moscow. Her work is characterized by an effort to disrupt stereotypes of behavior both for individuals and communities. For instance, she temporarily relocated the residents of Bedřichovice near Brno to London and established a new municipal holiday for them.