I am a lifelong researcher. In academia, I study the role of public spaces in our lives; in culture, I examine how saunas affect human well-being and community.

Give a little love to what gives you peace.
 

I always romanticized rain, right? I was the person who—or I am the person who—is always happy when it's raining, because you have these, like, kind of romantic feelings about rain. You see it in all the love stories and love movies, that the rain brings something.

 

I always think of rain as a bearer of news, in the sense of human relationships, in the sense of climate change. And so, the rain is somehow the novelty that can wash things away and help you to start something new. But also, I feel that rain is something we take for granted.

 

I remember one evening in Automatické Mills, and it was a long, long time before this huge reconstruction. So that was the old Automatické Mills, where some of our friends used to do a lot of parties. And I remember—or at least I have a scattered alcohol memory from that one evening—but I remember that we stayed the whole night, and we took not the early morning train, but the train at eight or nine.

 

So we'd been partying for quite a long time there, and at one moment, it was almost four or five a.m. It was a bit light already. So I went from this Automatické Mills to the river, to the Chrudimka, and I...

 

 

I sat there on this, like, concrete lining of the river, and it was because I felt, like, super overwhelmed by the people, by all the emotions, by, yeah, basically everything that was being on our plates this evening. And suddenly, I felt that I needed to calm down.

 

And every now and then, when I feel this need, I go to find a river or a place that feels, you know, kind of welcoming, feels that it has, like, super calm energy.

 

And I just remember, like, this is a glimpse of a memory, that I was sitting there and just watching the river and also, like, breathing the wet air. And that suddenly made me realize that I can shake off all the bad things and all the, like, emotions and all the overwhelming feelings.

 

And then I can just be there and sit by the river and just be fascinated by how calm it is.

 

And when I was thinking about this memory in the context of your project, I just realized that I also take rivers and all the water sources in Pardubice for granted, that it's been there, right? And it's always going to be there.

 

And now I imagine, like, a different scenario where I just went to this, like, concrete lining, and I watched—to what? If there is no water, if there is no river, there is no calmness to my feelings.

 

So, yeah, I just played with that idea that all the rivers, not only the rain, but also, like, the water we have, disappear. And it will be obviously a disaster in so many different ways, but also on this, like, emotional level of stability.

 

Yeah, maybe that's the accurate word, that the river for me, in that spot and on that particular evening, was, like, the only stable element in all the night-drinking madness.

 

So I don't want to lose this stability in my life.