USK PRAGUE

SKETCHING THROUGH THE ‘GRAVEYARD SHIFT’

A BAND OF HARDY EUROPEAN SKETCHERS EMBARKED ON AN EPIC MISSION: TO SKETCH FOR 24 HOURS IN THE SPECTACULAR CZECH CAPITAL. ONLY A FEW REMAINED STANDING…BY JAN VÍTEK

On Saturday 16 October 2021, we embarked on our ‘Prague Marathon’ – a ‘sports art’ event in our spectacular city, aiming to sketch for 24 hours straight, changing locations every couple of hours. Representatives from seven countries took part: 18 sketchers, two photographers, a social media expert, an assistant and two special guests, making 24 participants in total.

We started in Café Obecní dům for breakfast at 8am. Then we did a sketchwalk through the center, with fast 30-minute sketches. We had a wonderful afternoon session in the Residence of Turkish Ambassador Egemen Bağış who is a great lover of art. We sketched for two hours and spent one hour in a discussion. Then we went by tram to Café Platýz for dinner. Of course we drew during the tram trip. Sketching while riding was fun. From 8pm we recorded an amazing performance in Jazz Club Reduta.

The night was challenging. Around midnight we sketched quickly on the Legií Bridge. After that we moved to Cross Club. Around 3am only three people continued, and we went on a sketchwalk from the club to the city center. We stopped at Letenský Tunnel. After half an hour and at two degrees above zero, we were frozen. We decided to order hot tea via Bolt, but I could not find any restaurant offering hot tea at 4am that would deliver to the tunnel. Luckily we found an open restaurant – Burrito Loco – only a 20-minute walk away. Unfortunately there were no hot drinks or hot food. But we were happy at least for cold food and a place where we were not freezing. Then we moved to Burger King near Jungmannovo náměstí. Finally hot tea and coffee! We made a couple sketches and after 7am we headed back to Obecní dům for another breakfast at 8am.

Three people did the whole 24 hours without sleeping: Adam Topór, Marta Rogalska, and Jan Vítek. The winners did not hesitate to share their opinions. Adam Topór, who represented Great Britain, commented, “I had experience from a previous marathon in Warsaw. Glad I could use it to plan my time and conserve energy for the whole marathon.” Marta Rogalska, who participated in the marathon as a social media expert, thinks, “I met so many cool people, and I have seen a lot of great art, I had a wonderful time.” And I represented Czech Republic: “I had a crisis around 3am, I was thinking of giving up. I didn’t and, in the end, I was satisfied with my performance.”

We are holding a second sketch fest on 17-26 March www. sketchfest.cz. And we are throwing down another challenge: which city will organize the next marathon event?

AFTER MIDNIGHT: JAN SHARES WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS

ADAM TOPÓR, MARTA ROGALSKA,

AND JAN VÍTEK MADE IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

6:00 PM: ON THE

TRAM GOING TO DINNER

TOP: SKETCH OF OLD TOWN HALL BY ANNA MARIA JAKUBEK ABOVE: SKETCH OF THE PYLONES STORE BY BY ADAM TOPÓR

03:00 AM

LETENSKÝ TUNNEL 05:00 AM: ADAM & MARIA AT BURGER KING

SKETCHING AFTER MIDNIGHT

I found my style changed when sketching in the early hours other the morning. When I got really tired, I sketched with more spontaneity – I didn’t care so much about correctness (proportions etc..). I enjoyed sketching under such conditions very much and I like the results.

I would compare it to swimming lessons: if you want to learn freestyle properly, you need to get really tired during the training; that is the only way you will stop repeating the same bad swimming habits. You need to swim as efficiently as possible (that is a good style), so you simply don’t have any energy to make wrong inefficient movements.

RIGHT: JAN’S CLASSIC DIP PEN

UPDATE FROM RITA SABLER EDUCATION DIRECTOR: WINNERS OF THE USK REPORTAGE GRANT PROGRAM

This program was open to individual sketchers, chapters, and creative collaborators from around the world. Visual storytelling is at the heart of the USk movement, and we hope the program inspires new artist-reporters in our community. In December 2021, we received 63 proposals from sketchers all over the world. A committee of six judges awarded $USD 300-500 to the following winners: • ‘The Shifting Landscapes of Despair, Hope, Survival and Persistence’, Seattle (USA) by Daniel Winterbottom • ‘The Room’, Paris (France) by Mathieu Letellier (aka. Mat Let) • ‘Chawls of Mumbai: The Social Network’, Mumbai (India) by USK Mumbai • ‘Ripple Effect of a Historic Market’, Pune (India) by Farah Irani • ‘Night People Street Portraits, Berlin Kantstraße’, Berlin (Germany) by Rolf Schröter Congratulations to all the winners – as well as those who submitted other wonderful sketches!

SHIFTING LANDSCAPES – Daniel Winterbottom

Is it a right, a privilege, a reward, or a necessity to have a safe, dry home? Homelessness has become interwoven with the Seattle streetscape; over 11,000 people are experiencing this destabilising way of life, and thousands of businesses have closed in the wake of COVID-19. For those few, like Daniel Winterbottom, who do not walk by with eyes fixed on some other place, there are stories to be heard, heartbreak to be witnessed or imagined, and myriad unexpected details that jolt our perceptions and prejudices – like people’s efforts to keep their campsites clean without running water or storage materials, some placing bouquets of wildflowers placed at their entrances to make them more homely. Daniel says his year-long project began “as an unintentional act of art therapy – a response to the pandemic’s containment and alienation”. He felt it was important to learn about homelessness from the people impacted by it, and to provide “evidence that it is real, and that we as a society have, in part, turning away allowed it to happen”. One silver lining was that he found a renewed passion for sketching “as an act of observation, documentation, and expression”. Each sketch of a dwelling, shelter, or abandoned piece of furniture is so detailed and sensitive that it makes us wonder about the individuals and families linked to it. The sketches seem to ask us to see the human impact, the wasted potential, and the obligation to do more than just turn away.

THE ROOM – Mat Let

Knowing the power of sketching to ‘humanize’ and break down stigma, the French charity Médecins du Monde (Mdm) asked Mat Let to do a series of sketches at the Drug Consumption Room in the Barbès, Gare du Nord and Porte de la Chapelle neighbourhood in Paris. ‘The Room’ was founded in 2016 and gives drug users a safer, supervised space to consume drugs, an activity usually done ‘in the shadows’ out on the street.

Mat’s project brought him face to face with a new vocabulary, medical products, people and experiences that are unknown to most or depicted misleadingly in films and the media. For example, the drug of choice for many is Skenan, a readily available painkiller priced at around 5€ per pill. He discovered the sad fact that consuming drugs is how users go back to feeling normal and pain-free for a short time, before their craving kicks in and they have to get ‘sorted out’ again.

Many who come to The Room do not want to leave as this is almost the only place where drug users get respect and care instead of stigmatization and violence. There was a surprising amount of laughter, solidarity, care and respect here, all of which Mat captured in his sketches. He felt privileged to meet the staff and those they help at this unique centre. And though his visits were usually challenging on several levels, he says, “Just like my fellow human beings, I feel a little better after each visit.”

THE CHAWLS OF MUMBAI – USK Mumbai

The epic diversity of Mumbai ‘chawls’ – humble inner city tenement dwellings once designed to house migrant workers but now supporting generations of families – called for a collaborative approach. Four members of USK Mumbai joined forces to sketch the many faces, architectures and experiences of these locations – from light and colour-filled celebrations such as the dressing of holy basil (tulsi) trees, to the everyday lives of hardworking women tailors and lantern sellers, as well as the efforts of one artistic resident to beautify his small balcony. Here, people live shoulder to shoulder with only small balconies and shared courtyards for breathing space; residents have to leave any hopes of privacy or solitude behind them. They benefit from the togetherness, conversation, laughter and community support of this style of living, but there is the flip side, too: the strain of subsistence living at such close quarters and neighbourhood feuds and petty squabbles that are difficult to ignore or block out. Chawls also have a fascinating social and political history, their raw energy giving rise to political movements and activists, as well as to movie stars and mafia members.

Many chawls are now being cleared to make way for new city infrastructure and accommodation, so the Mumbai sketchers knew they were recording a way of life that may be under threat. Many shared time with residents and listened to their stories. Their combined work, coming from multiple perspectives and passions, shows life in all its kaleidoscope color and variety, a fitting tribute indeed to life in the chawl.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT OF A HISTORIC MARKET – Farah Irani

Farah Irani had been sketching her neighbourhood in the city of Pune for some time, on a road full of historic buildings built during the colonial British era. For this project, she concentrated on a unique historic market, to understand how the local people have reclaimed and repurposed it, and how the British and Indian influences have evolved during the pandemic.

According to laws put in place by the British, vendors can only sell what they are licensed to at the century-old Mandai market – but they find ways to adapt their wares to the ever changing festivals and customer demands: “For Diwali it’s brooms, for the Ganesh Festival it’s creative pedestals for the installation of the idol, for Dussehra, there are mountains of marigolds,” says Farah. One memorable day, Farah drew the broom vendor at right, who was perched high on a pile of his wares: “It looked like he had attained nirvana there, as he took his calls and handled his thronging customers in a peaceful manner…. he even tried to see that I had a cup of hot tea, organized a chair for me to sit on despite my protests, and ensured his men directed the chaotic traffic around me just so that I could sketch.”

The market stalls mirror India’s many festivals, and the broom vendor was catering to the tradition of sweeping away poverty in the home. This happens on the day before the traditional financial year ends, when Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, visits around midnight and tries to find the cleanest house. “Through this type of storytelling I have learned to dive in deep to look for those untold stories, to spend time with the subject to appreciate and highlight the need for conservation of an ageing structure,” says Farah.

NIGHT PEOPLE, STREET PORTRAITS

Rolf Schroeter got to know one street in his neighbourhood intimately – Kantstraße, which connects the Berlin Fair and International Congress Center with the Beitscheidtplatz in the center of the Berlin district of Charlottenburg. A hub for restaurants, bars, theatre and “overall intense nightlife”, he’d walked through it countless times but only started exploring it in great detail with this project.

He started at an uneasy point aontinuing through periods of greater restrictions. As he is by no means an extrovert, tackling portraits was a challenge: “My method is to quite openly start a drawing of a situation, always containing a capture of some person in a habitat. So I already catch a bit of context and at the same time sometimes attract attention that can be a starting point for a conversation. Sometimes this leads to a portrait sitting (right away or scheduled on another date); other times I only collect some info, thoughts and views from a conversation.” Rolf is conscious that there are many café owners and chefs among his portraits, as they are naturally communicative and keen to interact with people. He intends to exhibit his work close by at a gallery space called ‘povvera’ in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Check out his blog, where he will post details.