BRNOX

I got the idea of the Brno Bronx mainly thanks to the founders of Ghettofest, a festival that takes place right in an exclusion zone and seeks to connect the locals with other inhabitants of Brno through culture. At that time Pavel Strašák was trying (in 2004) to get me to prepare an event or a large-scale project for Ghettofest.

In the beginning, I was quite lost. Most people expect me to have a lot of experience from previous projects, a well-thought-out field strategy and guidelines to help me avoid complications. Of course there is no such thing. You always face similar problems and have to look for new approaches and solutions. Then, as I got to know the area, I realized that I hardly knew it, or only did so superficially, and that I had actually been brought upon the kinds of prejudices the other residents of Brno have. In fact, in my initial situation, I represented most viewers – those who ride trams through Brnox, listening to their parents tell them what to think about the place. As a result, they think of it as a problematic, conflict-ridden area and therefore see no reason to get off the tram and try to find out more about the area. Yet I don’t see them as hardened racists, but rather as people who lack a lot of important information. I myself had been in a similar situation at first. I didn’t want to do work many sociologists and anthropologists had already done. I told mysem I would go there as a perfectly normal young woman and that I would map my trajectory somehow. That’s what seemed most interesting to me.

The original idea was to deal with all the houses in the area, each in a different way. Which would never have occured to anyone but me, because there are hundreds of buildings there and you’d need to think up a leitmotif for each one. For about a year I went from house to house, from one apartment to the next, looking for something interesting in each. But that idea didn’t work. It was constantly falling flat, and I became desperate. On the other hand, I amassed plenty of material – I didn’t have a container for it. Then came proposals for two routes that would lead from somewhere in the city center, cross roughly at the Radost Theater and end at some unexpected point, like a pub, for example. But it seemed to me that there weren’t too many layers to the idea and it wouldn’t be able to convey the area’s diversity. It was only a year later that I came up with the idea that best met all my requirements: ten different routes, each with its own focus. The journey was quite complicated, even though its final form might seem simple.

At first I found prejudices embodied physically in the streets. That’s why I began to look inside the buildings, which I was able to enter at first with the help of the local mail carriers. Sometimes I had to go to people’s homes first to have them show me something that had been outside all the time. Also in this way I came across a number of non-Roma Czech families who were quite happy in the area, which maybe not everyone would expect.

Kateřina Šedá, 2016

BRNOX I.
Brnox: a Guide to Brno’s Bronx.

After two years of research on site, I published BRNOX: a Guide to Brno’s Bronx, to great acclaim from both experts and the general public, which went on to receive the Magnesia Litera award for journalism. The guide contains ten color-coded routes that map the area:

• WHITE ROUTE: faith and tradition
• YELLOW ROUTE – gourmet
• ORANGE ROUTE – shops and services
• PINK ROUTE – kids
• RED ROUTE – historical-futuristic
• VIOLET ROUTE – Holocaust
• GREEN ROUTE – flora and fauna
• BLUE ROUTE – culture and sports
• GRAY ROUTE –the country in the city
• BLACK ROUTE – nighttime

Each route comprises ten spots conceived in unusual, unexpected ways and one tip for a trip outside “Brno’s Bronx.” For example, on the yellow gourmet route, you can find out what snacks the Bronx’s kids take to school; what recipes the locals use to cook; and what restaurants, fast food and cafeterias there are in the area. You can also find out that a priest from Romania is salvaging food there, or that ZdeněkPohlreich filmed an episode of the popular TV show Ano, šéfe [Yes, boss] at the local eatery U Vlka. For the orange route, devoted to shops and services, we created ads for local businesses based on information provided by their owners or employees. We koncern ourselves with the history of the area on two routes: violet –the Holocaust and red – historical-futuristic. For the Red Route we discuss the historical significance of the ten stops we selected. Then, the futuristic aspect of the route comprises alternative suggestions for what the future might hold. An example of a tip for a trip – in this case from the pink kids route – is the fountain by the Janáček Theater known as the “hitchhiker swimming pool,”where locals and their children go to sunbathe and také a dip. All 110 stops were conceived on the basis of hands-on experience. Through them, the guide offers a living picture of an area almou everyone has set views on, but few have been to or actually have any knowledge of. In addition, complementing each route is a collection of short interviews I conducted with people on the street, in shops, pubs, etc.

I invited a number of experts (sociologists, ethnographers, historians, botanists, writers…) as well as laypeople from the area to collaborate on the book. The collaborators I worked with most closely were the publicist Aleš Palán, the Bohemist (Czech studies researcher) Lucie Faulerová and the graphic designer Kristína Drinková; however, the historian Michal Konečný, the writer Kateřina Tučková and the music journalist Pavel Klusák also contributed significantly to the book. The result is a publication that has, at least to some extent, managed to dispel some of the negative associated with the area and and attract the attention of the public.

Within the framework of Brnox, a Romany-Czech name day calendar was created, inspired by the Romany name day calendar containing traditional Romany names compiled in 1997 by Tibor Tonka from Brno’s Bronx. The present-day calendar is supplemented with new Romany names collected from local primary schools and streets.

Kateřina Šedá, 2016

BRNOX II.
Revitalization of the Brno Bronx

On Brnox gray route, I suggested a number of changes that might improve the current state of public spaces in the Brno Bronx. With several architects and designers, I wondered how one might go about revitalizing the area, along with its local idiosyncrasies, not only preserving them, but working actively with them. The urban architecture in the area is not in such a catastrophic state as one might think. But that’s because it’s in no state at all. In the guide, you’ll find out how many benches and garbage containers there are in the area – and the number is shocking. Similarly, the orientation systemis fragmented and there is no indication that the place is unique in any way either in the past or at present. Unfortunately, quite the opposite is true. Several of Brno’s historically significant buildings have stood – and still stand – here, from a prison where Nazi criminals were executed and many important figures were imprisoned after 1945 (such as poets Jan Zahradníček and Zdeněk Rotrekl or historian Zdeněk Kalista), to Brno’s largest cinema,dating back to the early 20th century (the Orania Cinema) and one of Brno’s most important textile factories, which shared in the glory of the “Moravian Manchester.” However, the area’s primary historical significancederives from its role the mass transportation and concentration of Jews during the Holocaust. It was also here that the first mass transportation of Roma to Auschwitz began. Unfortunately, the area seems to have maintained some of its stigma to this day.Much as Jews and Roma weredriven out in the past, today's minorities – the Roma foremost among them – are still being driven out of their homes and shunted to the margins of society.

The aim of the BRNOX II project is to formulate a proposal to revitalizethe public spaces of the Brno Bronxby meansof low-cost interventions in the locality. The main goal is to transform the neighborhood by means of art and thereby find a fitting way to connect it naturally with the surrounding area. I divided the project into seven different chapters (mobile and web applications, publicity, shops and services, mailboxes, orientation, furniture and a meeting), in which we always proposethe improvement of a specific phenomenon. The expected outcome of the project is not only the transformation of the locality, but above all the transformation of the relationships in thearea.

I invited graphic designer Kristína Drinková, architecture student Georgie Dimitrov, and two leading Czech architectural studios, ORA and ELLEMENT, to cooperate on BRNOX II.

Kateřina Šedá, 2016