Interview with Jindřich Štreit
Prof. Mgr. Jindřich Štreit
Jindřich Štreit is a Czech photographer, an university teacher, a curator and an organizer of a cultural life. He was born on September 5, 1946 in Vsetin in Wallachia. He graduated from the Pedagogical Faculty of Palacky University in Olomouc. He taught at a primary school in Rýmařov, he was director of the school in Sovinec and Jiříkov. He graduated from the School of Creative Photography in Brno. Since 1967 he has realized more than 1100 solo exhibitions around the world. His works are represented in prestigious galleries. He has published 30 books and numerous catalogs.
In 1982 he participated as the only photographer in an unofficial exhibition of visual artists on tennis courts in Prague, where his photographs attracted the attention of the secret police. He was taken into custody and later sentenced to imprisonment of ten months suspended for two years. He came into conflict with the totalitarian regime due to photographing of socialist countryside. Police confiscated his camera and photographic material. In the history of photography, this case is probably unique.
After his release from prison he was not allowed to teach. First, he worked in a library and after the conclusion of the court hearing he had to find a job as a dispatcher of the State Farm Ryžoviště.
Since 1994 he is a freelance photographer.
Since 1991 he has worked on documentary projects in France, England, Brazil, Moldova, Austria, Germany, Japan, China, Hungary, Russia (Buryatia, Krasnodar region, Ingushetia, Chechnya), but also in the Czech Republic. He won numerous national and international awards for his photographs and in 2006 he even received a State Order of Merit First Instance from the hands of the President.
You had graduated from the Faculty of Education, majoring in art education and you used to teach too. When did you become more interested in photography?
I began with photographing in my first year at the university. But my father was an amateur photographer and as a child I saw, how were the photographs produced.
What do you like about the work of a photographer? Do You learn something? What is it?
For me photography is an incredible experience of meeting and communicating with people. It's amazing to be there, to feel the pulsing life.
It does not have to be only about the dramatic experiences. Even in the most ordinary and banal situation there is happening a lot.
As a photographer You are mainly addressing social issues - hard work, drugs, aging, disabled, blind and forth. Why is that so?
I consider my work as engaged in the truest sense of the word. That's why I am devoted to these issues.
Another topic You deal with in lifelong processes is a theme of a village. When did you get this idea? Why village?
All my life I have been living in the country. This topic is very close to me. I do not see her romantically, but realistically.
Conceptually, I realized this in the late 70s. I seek the theme of a village not only here but also in other countries (Hungary, Poland, Austria, France, England, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Brazil).
On Your photos with the topic of villages there are often people trapped in different
situations. Why do you like making photos of especially that?
Life brings those situations. I just record them. I am just a silent observer.
What feature is important for the photographer who wants to make a social document?
One of the most important things is the art of listening. Each of us often feel alone and happy to share our thoughts, our feelings. Photographer should not act like a big dude. If he knows how to listen, it will help him with his creation. A man tells you his fate, his story, and you will record it. Perhaps he will take you home and reveal to you places you would not normally get to. What is important is trust.
You're used to working on Your projects for even more than a year. During Your life you've photographed many times at University College Hospital in Olomouc. What, for example, were You working at in an environment of Olomouc hospital?
Three years to eight years is a usual period of working on my projects. Very interesting series I have created on the Olomouc neonatal department in collaboration with Mr. senior consultant Lumír Kantor. It's called Babies in the palm, it is focused on the issue of prematurity, premature infants, and the exhibition toured for many years of many places in the Czech Republic. It was a very interesting project, which came out with no less interesting book called The questions, compiled exactly by Lumír Kantor. In this book celebrities such as Marek Eben, Táňa Fischerová and others think about the meaning of birth and death, it is an ethical view of saving children with low birth weight. It is a very serious topic, which is necessary to speak of and it is very interesting to see photographs of those children and read the different opinions.
You photographed many times abroad. You said that with the people You are shooting You spend some time first to talk to them. But in a foreign country, in another culture, it can not be so easy to get between ordinary people and gain their trust …
It's challenging. It's good when you have a man who will bring you to the social environment. Here I can make it alone, but abroad it is more difficult. Since we are already talking about foreign countries and we also talked about my hospital projects, for example, I photographed in hospitals in Japan, China, Germany, France, but also in Russia, Moldova and Poland. It is interesting to compare these institutions in different parts of the world.
Does it say something about the area, about these people, their culture?
It says a lot. We have fixed idea of Japan as extremely cultivated country with a high standard of living, but their hospitals surprised me. The patient came in and got a bed, apart from that you have to take absolutely everything with you, including toilet paper. I hate to recall hospitals in Russia or in Moldova. I really would not like to be sick there.
What also happened to You was - for our young people something perhaps unimaginable - that you were arrested in 1982 for photos You made... Is that right? What kind of exhibition was that?
The exhibition was called Meeting and it was in Prague.
How did You see it then and how do You see it today? Do you think it is possible for something like this (in the sense of the Communist regime) to return again?
We never know what will happen and how everything will evolve. We should not underestimate anything. The most important is freedom.
Recently I got into my hands Your catalogue, on which you collaborated with Martina Vašíčková - We're from the same planet. I really like this project. How did this idea come about?
The project We're from the same planet was initiated by Charity Prague. The idea brought Churchajeva Catherine, whom I met in Chechnya and in Ingushetia, where she was responsible for management of humanitarian aid. About this work, I published a book So close, so far.
Do You Yourself see some big differences in the behaviour of people here and elsewhere on the planet?
Each country has its own specifics and we often do not understand and do not perceive what is happening, what has happened. It's a given historical context.
Everything is relative.
It there something (anything at all), what would you like to say to the young generation of people who live here?
Let us live and act like it was heaven on earth. The most important and the most difficult is the road, a journey to yourself. Let's form when we have something to say.
Let's be tolerant.
Thank you very much for the interview.