Artist Šedá wants to give a book form to the collection of Czech bad habits, she has thousands of them

Brno - Tens of thousands of Czech bad habits, from individual to family and national, have been collected over the past year by the award-winning artist Kateřina Šedá. She now wants to give the collection a representative book form. She is raising money through community funding on the platform HitHit.

Šedá, sometimes referred to as a social architect, has long been engaged in projects at the intersection of various artistic forms and social activism. She often works with individuals and large groups of people, their relationships, and stereotypes. The national collection of bad habits was created as part of her project Celej von in celebration of last year's 200th anniversary of the birth of genetics founder Gregor Johann Mendel.

When Šedá thought about how to capture Mendel's legacy and bring his personality closer to contemporary people, she realized that he was not only a scientist, meteorologist, or beekeeper, but also a heavy smoker. In fact, several burnt tablecloths were left behind. She then began collecting individual, family, professional, and customer bad habits with her collaborators in various environments and communities.

According to Šedá, sharing bad habits helps people find a way to each other, open communication, and understand a different perspective. "I may have also strengthened several marriages by sharing bad habits together, because after the mutual shower of bad habits, there was always some declaration of love. But the main thing I saw, and what I take away from the collections, is the confirmation of how little we talk to each other, how little we know about others, and how little it often interests us," Šedá stated on Facebook.

The collection now has about 30,000 items. Among the bad habits in the collection are excessive or insufficient cleaning, arriving early or late to meetings, drinking soy sauce, rummaging through trash bins, as well as grooming hair on legs or addressing one's husband by his last name. The collection also reflects radical discrepancies among Czechs regarding the proper roasting of sausages or the placement of toilet paper on the holder.

Children have also participated in the collection, pointing out the bad habits of teachers, parents, and other relatives. One child contributor even evaluated it as a bad habit that presidents usually have only black cars.