Overthinking – Thought-Provoking Interviews on Europe, Culture and Our Future

04. 08. 2021
Podcast
5 minute read

Welcome to the Overthinking podcast, where we interview internationally acclaimed Czech personalities living abroad, reflecting the social, economic and political changes during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

Podcasts are available on Spotify a Soundcloud.
Personalities: Jen Kratochvíl, Libuše Černá, The Rodina , Denisa Šedivá and Jiří Šedivý, Jiří Přibáň

Jen Kratochvíl

Jen Kratochvíl, a leading creator of modern art, art critic and teacher. He lives and works between Prague, Vienna and Bratislava.

Back in 2018, Jen Kratochvíl organized a festival in Prague to explore the limits of public space and tourism as one of the burning issues of the capital. In 2020, the situation was the opposite. "The centre of Prague has changed radically. During the period when the centre was basically abandoned, suddenly you started to see local people visiting the historical sites where they would normally never go,“ says Jen.

Overthinking – Thought-Provoking Interviews on Europe, Culture and Our Future

According to Jen Kratochvíl, it turns out that the pandemic also brought positive moments. "We all need to be able to constantly adapt without losing our minds and without losing our livelihoods,“ Jen concluded.

The interview was prepared by the Czech Centre Vienna

Libuše Černá

Libuše Černá has been involved in the Czech Brethren Church of Evangelical Youth since the age of fourteen. In 1977, she emigrated to Bremen, where she recorded radio interviews with Holocaust survivors. Nowadays she organizes literary festivals that deepen relations between the Czech and German cultural worlds.

How has the coronavirus pandemic changed the organization of cultural projects? “After fifteen years of established tradition of organizing festivals, we were asked to become more creative, says Libuše.

“We took a big car and went outside to read poetry.” The new concept of the festival thrilled both the audience and the organizers. “Paradoxically, the time of Covid taught us to listen to one another,” says Libuše Černá.

The interview was prepared by the Czech Centre Berlin

The Rodina (Tereza and Vít Ruller)

The Rodina (Tereza and Vít Ruller), an Amsterdam-based post-critical design studio with an experimental practice drenched in strategies of performance art, play and subversion.

Tereza and Vít moved to the Netherlands where the border between design and fine art is not so strict. “Graphic design can promote social change, it can become a catalyst for action, interaction, and playfulness,” says Tereza. She is against sameness in art and design. “I would rather advocate for weirdness than sameness,” Tereza explains.

The Rodina: Cofounders - Vít a Tereza Ruller, portrait © The Rodina

The interview was prepared by the Czech Centre Rotterdam

Denisa Šedivá and Jiří Šedivý

Denisa Šedivá, author of the most beautiful Czech book of 2018 ABCZ or H is for Havel, mother of two and designer. Jiří Šedivý, Chief executive of the European Defence Agency, Denisa's husband, diplomat, former Czech ambassador to NATO, father and musician.

Jiří Šedivý describes his recent experiences from the covid pandemic. “It was a typical black swan – something unimaginable came without warning. No one was prepared for such a situation and the natural instinct commanded to build the barriers instead of coordinated solutions, says Jiří.

Denisa Šedivá, Jiří Šedivý © Dagmar Kneřová

Denisa spent most of the time during the pandemic in the countryside with their children. Teaching on Skype worked, but “children are not so proactive on Skype, they are distant,“ she says. She began writing her book ABCZ or H as Havel to make her children curious about the Czech Republic while the family lived in Belgium. Our son is saying “I am Belgian” because he was born here in Belgium.

The interview was prepared by the Czech Centre Brussels

Jiří Přibáň

Jiří Přibáň, professor of legal theory, philosophy and sociology at Cardiff School of Law and Politics in Wales.

How has the coronavirus pandemic affected him professionally? “As a university professor, you metaphorically enjoy the lockdown because you have time to read and write undisturbed by other commitments, says Přibáň.

However, he has a clear view on distance learning. According to Přibáň, “online education is good for something but it cannot replace the real university experience.”