KONEKT: an integrated handbook for incoming creatives

KONEKT is a cultural guide and methodology designed to welcome and integrate creatives arriving in Brno, whether as tourists, students, or artists-in-residence. The publication also acts as a local handbook, supporting readers to take an active role in understanding the complexity of the community.

Conceived as a pocket-sized handbook (144 pages, 1,400 copies in English), the project offers a curated profile of Brno's contemporary cultural scene. KONEKT exists as a direct response to institutional documents currently in use in many municipalities around Europe. The publication prioritizes a grassroots approach to education, inviting many members of the cultural community to participate in describing the intricacies of the city's scene.

The initiative stems from Markham Press' network of collaborators and is realized in partnership with Vitamin, lnfame Radio, and the curatorial collective Cejla. The publication is distributed by local institutions such as TIC, Co.Labs, the Department of Foreign Relations, Kultura Brno, Vitamin, the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Brno University of Technology, the House of Arts, and Cejla Gallery. With editorial guidance from long-term advocate and scholar Don Sparling, and an experienced curatorial team, the book combines experimental storytelling with concrete tools (maps, QR codes, insider humor, and institutional connections) to depict the realities of creation in Brno.

KONEKT makes use of five pillar chapters to ground its resources. These chapters cover the main characteristics of the cultural scene, including the central district, the peripheries, arts and academia, radio and broadcast, and music venues. Woven between these pillars are local facts, dialects, interviews, walking tours, and plans for the future. The book concludes with an index and a map of key locations, allowing readers to explore spaces across all of the city's distinct areas. The writing team includes six local curators from both Vitamin and Cejla Gallery: Barbara Ilic, Daniel Robertson-Styles, Kristyna Gajdosova, Monika Rygalova, Risto Ilic, and Tereza Vinklarkova.

The publication's graphic identity was created by Daria Lemesheva, who undertook a three-day visual exploration of Brno, collecting over two hundred photographs that captured the city's visual language. This extensive documentation served as the foundation for a process of visual translation, in which fragments of the city's surfaces were recontextualized into a series of collages. The resulting graphics provide an external image of Brno's complex visual landscape. Over time, readers may recognize pieces from their own surroundings within the compositions, bridging personal and collective experience.