Kochiba is a multi-medial artist and the founder of the festival FOPA. She comes from the Krkonoše mountains and has been living in Pardubice since 2019. In her paintings she deals with the themes of body, emotions and their connection using different techniques. Her poetry acts as a journal of her deepest fears. The fight against sexism is an important part of her work and personal life. She started hosting public events the age of 18, with FOPA being the current project.

We have to change ourselves first.
 

Hi, I'm Aneška (allias Kochiba), and I'm a painter, a poet, and the founder of the multi-genre festival FOPA, which has been going on for three years. The most dominant topic of my work is the social aspect, stemming from the belief that in order to change society, we have to change ourselves first. This is most emphasized through the festival, where I try to connect and educate people in the matter of relationships towards other people and their surroundings. We also support young local artists, and we use upcycled materials for decoration. I used to be a vegan, and I used to attend protests, but lately I felt burnt out. And even though I would like to do more, I have to think about myself first, because if I get exhausted completely, I'm not gonna be able to do anything. In my opinion, it's important to not pressure ourselves in the matter of social responsibility to the point of crushing guilt. A lot of people still struggle with that because we are taught to neglect ourselves for something higher, or even someone else. There's a lot of ways to help the environment from our homes, like recycling and responsible shopping. I personally have a lot of clothing and apartment equipment from dumpster diving, which, for me, is a way to be responsible even in difficult financial situations. What I would like to change in our city is the availability of biological waste dumpsters. In my district, there's only one of them, and it's locked with a chain. I still don't know why. Or places where people can leave things that they don't want anymore, and people can take them. In Prague, there's a lot of these. I wish every city could have them. These are the smallest things that could be done. Of course, I would love solar panels or green roofs in our city. For example, the automatic mills have a lot of potential for that. Even though the Slovak culture, it's still very commercial, and people and the environment still tend to come second. Or I would love for politicians not to do things like chopping down the Červenyak forest and then promising to make a new forest, as promised before the elections. I find it hypocritical and typical for our country to take things from us and then act like they are giving it back to us on a golden plate.