This piece was written and reported last semester as part of the journalism program.
By Andrea F. Pagliai
Solitude is an obsession for Hana Jakrlová. She lives it, documents it, and by doing so, strives to combat it. She is 40 years old, divorced, and temporarily living in Prague. Never completely alone, Jakrlová has her art; because of her art, she has many colleagues turned friends. It’s with them that she started the “Laughter and Forgetting Project” (a title taken from a Milan Kundera novel) in an attempt to unite photographers from all over the world to document the Czech Republic, 20 years after the Velvet Revolution. The project’s first phase has already begun.
She has cancelled and rescheduled today’s meeting three times already. Balancing a seemingly endless list of projects, ideas, and people, it makes one wonder how she pulls it all together. But right now she’s at ease in her Vinohrady apartment – thought still recovering from a ferocious ear infection that hospitalized her during the “L.A.F. Project’s” Forum 2000 Oct. 11th-13th 2009 début, leading her to miss most of the exhibition.
In Jakrlová’s own words, “being a photographer is a pretty lonely occupation, so I thought it would be great to organize something with all these photographers.” With “L.A.F.” Jakrlová unites international photographers to portray everyday life in the Czech Republic – two decades after the fall of Communism. In many ways the project, “is a symbol of the Czech Republic,” she explains. The recent 20-year anniversary of the Velvet Revolution makes it all the more timely.
The project has two phases – the second will take place in 2010. Next year, a foundation will be established to support lesser-known photographers living in totalitarian countries. An emphasis will be placed on documenting conflict-free, daily life. “We want to capture these ‘grey zones’ in non-democracies, where unless something horrible happens [there] no one cares,” Jakrlová adjoins.
Jakrlová knows something about regimes such as these. Born in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, Jakrlová studied architecture in Brno and in Prague. Practicing only for a year, she realized it did not excite her.
In the mid ‘90s she worked two years as a set designer for films and spent the rest of her twenties traveling and studying photography all over the world. In 1997 she studied at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic, after which she decided to take on the craft professionally.
Though slow to find her passion, Jakrlová has been a professional photographer for the past 10 years
A decade into her career, Jakrlová has become “a prominent name in the art world,” according to Photographer Nadia Shira Cohen – a professional photographer living in Rome who participated in “L.A.F.”
Nathalie Belayche – a photographer, curator, agent, and project organizer – lives in Paris and has collaborated with Jakrlová in the past. Belayche shares, “[Hana] is part of the contemporary scene,” but adds, “When a photographer has a story or project, they always have to keep on going, always thinking of the next thing.”
In Belayche’s opinion, that is exactly what Jakrlová is doing with “L.A.F.” “It’s always annoying for a photographer to be reduced to a single project,” in regards to Jakrlová’s most controversial works, “Big Sister Project.”
The project garnered Jakrlová a great deal of attention due its controversial subject matter. While “Big Sister” appears to be a photojournalistic story, Jakrlová quickly makes a distinction, calling it a “conceptual documentary project.”
The brothel, also named Big Sister, operates peculiarly. The brothel is almost entirely funded by interview viewers who observe live streams of the encounters between visiting men and prostitutes. Additionally, the men pay a small fee.
Jakrlová’s digital, color images are eerily poetic. Jakrlová specifically chose color to make the project the least photojournalistic as possible. She’s not making a statement with the content of the image – however doubtful it may seem (most show two people in the throws of gritty coition) – but instead with the juxtaposition of ideas: intimacy and solitude; color and life, contrasted with emotion-less expressions and business-like exchanges between two peoples.
However, don’t tell her its reportage, or that she’s a photojournalist. “I did it as an art project,” she says. With photojournalism, Jakrlová clarifies, “you tell a story and that’s it.” While the distinction might seem slight, to Jakrlová it’s essential.
Cohen explains that Jakrlová might shy away from the photojournalist label “because of the responsibility that comes with it.” Conceptualizing it puts a distance between subject and art.
Jakrlová shares: “The way I work – unless it is on assignment – is that I just follow a theme without exactly knowing what is going to happen. Then I look at the work and I see the theme that comes out.”
This is the case with her ongoing project, titled: “Solitude.” Finding solitude – usually in urban spaces – Jakrlová notes: “The more we are surrounded by people, the more we are lonely.” What interests her about “Big Sister” is, “how it defines the borders between the most private things: intimacy, sex, and the most public thing – Internet.” She elaborates, “ I am interested in the Internet and how it brings people closer but also alienates.”
However, Belayche hopes that now people will have another opinion of Jakrlová. She explains, “I think that it’s really well for her to do a project like “L.A.F.,” because she’s not only a photographer who goes into brothels. She felt like that was something she had to do, but hopefully [now] she’s doing something else.”
Before she photographed Big Sister, Jakrlová focused on Europe, working mainly in black and white. For “Ways of Communication,” she photographed the nine cities of the 2000 European Cities of Culture. The resulting collection work gave her the material for “Europeans,” an internationally published and exhibited show beginning in 2001.
This work not only got her noticed by London-based Eric Franck Fine Art Gallery in 2003, but also earned her a book deal. The idea behind her first 2006 photo-book, titled, In the Meantime: Europe, was conceived during her travels after the fall of Communism.
The book was published in 2006 with an introduction by former President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel, in which he writes, “I think Hana Jakrlová’s photographs not only show the vast diversity of our continent, but they also present a great range of emotions: hope, boredom, distress, pain, and also fleeting joy…yes, this is the world today.”
It is a great accomplishment to publish a book, have Havel write an introduction for it, and gain representation from Eric Franck. Despite this, the majority of people interviewed believe that “Big Sister” is the project that continues to garner the most attention for Jakrlová, for better or for worse.
Jakrlová also attracts personal attention for she is quite beautiful. Her hair, a swirling dirty blonde mix, generally holds a red flower, clipped in its midst. Speaking a mile-a-minute, she weaves in-and-out of Czech, French, German, Russian, and English.
A passionate woman, some think Jakrlová doesn’t always assess the risks before jumping into a new project.
“Her greatest strength is passion and it’s also her greatest weakness,” shares Stephanie Entin, a close friend living in Manhattan. This was the case with “Big Sister.” The emotional and mental difficulties made it so that the project took a toll on her life.
In 2007, Jakrlová took time away from “Big Sister” and photography in general. She went to work for the Forum 2000 organization. Working with all these people gave her the energy to put together the “L.A.F.” and show it at the Forum’s 2009 event, this past October.
One can see how her life is a reflection of her work – as is the case with many artists. Belayche specifies, “there are famous Czech photographers, but Hana is international.” However, her constant travels may increase her solitude. When asked if Jakrlová would settle down, Belayche says, “I hope she will,” chuckling, “but she has to slow down a little bit.”
Ondřej Nejedlý, a Czech lawyer and international adventure guide who led Jakrlová on a tour of Mont Blanc in 2009, attests to the fact that Jakrlová stands out from the rest. He remembers, “she’s far from a typical Czech person – she’s a universe type of person.”
For now, Prague is no longer enough. Hana’s independent and wild nature will take her to New York, in a permanent move taking place this winter. It is a move she has been contemplating for a while and it makes sense. Jakrlová says, “I have more contacts in New York than I do in Prague.”
April 8, 2010 | Posted by Editor010 
After a long week of spring break, struggling to see every monument, museum and tourist site in Rome and Venice, the relaxing beaches of Greece greeted me kindly. Feeling a little nervous questioning the country’s financial condition, I was a little hesitant to visit my trip’s second to last stop. However, despite some need of improvements, this city definitely had its shining moments.
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