About us and contacts

Art historian, cultural activist and translator; worked as an art historian in several state galleries, most recently at NG Prague. Co-founder of the Pilgrim association (with Tomáš Hrůza in 2009). The association was inspired by the exhibition "From the ground over the hill to the sky... About walking, pilgrimage and sacred landscapes" (SČG Litoměřice 2005), dedicated to KHMách and CDFriedrich. In 2014, he founded the Wandering University of Nature (PUP) in Pilgrim with Alena Malíková. He deals with the practice of pilgrimage and organizes the annual May and August PUP wanderings and seminars, including other educational walks (Deep Time Walk) and activities. He deals with the connections between ecology, cosmology and spirituality and the ecological transformation of contemporary culture. As a translator, he introduces the ideas of philosophers David Abram, Thomas Berry and Freya Mathews into the Czech environment.

She graduated from the University of Agriculture (today's Mendel University) in Brno. While working at the Bioinstitute, the NGO and the administration of the Moravian Gate Regional Center PRO-BIO of the Association of Organic Farmers, she focused on the topic of human influence in the (agricultural) landscape, and especially on his relationship to the soil. She co-founded and collaborates with the Pro půdu Foundation and the VIKTORINA LOCA Cooperative in Příbor. She is a member of the Šelongs' KPZ (community-supported agriculture). She collaborates with Svobodný statek na soutoku. Since 2014, she has been participating in the activities of the Pilgrim's Traveling University of Nature. In the field of agriculture, she considers it necessary “understanding food production and consumption as the joint work of all species on the fertility of the biosphere. This ‘work for life’ increases diversity, makes the landscape more beautiful and brings pleasure to all.” (Andreas Weber and Martin Ott)

Artist, cultural worker and publisher. He studied photography at the Faculty of Art and Design of the University of Prague in Ústí nad Labem. In his environmentally-oriented work, he primarily reflects the relationship between man and nature. He is one of the founders of the Fotograf 07 platform and the independent cultural guide ArtMap. He occasionally engages in teaching activities, working mainly at the Prague FAMU and the Brno FaVU.

Together with Jiří Zemánek, he founded Pilgrim – The Wandering University of Nature, where he documents and co-organizes the activities of the association.

He was born and lives in Prague with a love of art and movement and in harmony with Karel Hynek Mácha. A mathematician for a while, a municipal politician for a while, but always a wanderer, a traveler and later the founder of the ALTÁN ART association. ALTÁN ART currently organizes the activities of the creative visual art Studio of Joyful Creation for artists with a powerful and sick soul, the cultural community center ART for people with an earlier date of birth and people with health disabilities; with curator Jaromír Typlt he founded the Art Brut Gallery in Prague, the first gallery in the Czech Republic dedicated specifically to art brut.

She studied film production at FAMU. She worked as an executive producer on Czech feature and documentary films (The Karamazovs – The Bohemian Lion 2008) and headed the production department at the National Film Archive. In 2018, she and her friends created the documentary Happy Farmers about an eco-farm at the Plum Village Buddhist monastery in France. This experience directed her towards creative work as a director of ecological videos for the AMPI Association and the Soil Foundation. For some time, she led the promotion of the Alferia publishing house. She collaborates with Jan and Matyáš Trnkov (interactive exhibition Zahrada 2) and is dedicated to fundraising for the systemic transformation of education in the Eduzměna project. She has been implementing her pilgrimage effects in the lush ecosystem of Pilgrim for over ten years.

South Bohemian poet, essayist and musician, founding member of the audiovisual project Mess of Iguanas. He graduated in Film Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University and Environmental Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, MU. He has published in the magazines Film a Doba, Sedmá generace, Host, Tvar, Milk & Honey. His first work of poetry was published under the wings of Pilgrim Many rivers (2021), his second book of poems was published by Malvern Publishing House, entitled The last wild embrace (2023) and last year published a collection of essays Together, Untamed: Essays from the Living World (Seventh Generation 2024). He is currently preparing a third collection of verses for publication. all about the sun, the final part of a poetry trilogy. He is also working on an illustrated book The Earth is a purring cat, the second book of essays Follow life and in stylized topography Second rain, in which he draws inspiration from haibun prose. He also focuses on sound ecology and bioacoustics, especially bird calls.

Cultural mover, writer and pilgrim from Vodňany in South Bohemia. He studied Political Science and International Relations (FSV UK, Dresden, Munich). He traveled from Vodňany to Jerusalem (2010), from Hiroshima to Nagasaki (2015) and from Konstanz to Taizé (2016). In 2010, he founded the Vodňany žijou association and has been organizing Pecha Kucha Nights since 2015. He worked in municipal politics in his hometown (2010-22). Together with his wife, they organize creative meetings with poetry (haiku) and sound painting, hold exhibitions and publish author's books - mainly within the framework of the HiP Publishing House and the Pupalku association. In 2021-23, he lectured at Utsunomiya University (Japan). He has been studying and practicing classical Chinese medicine for a long time. He contributed to the book To the Roots of Chinese Medicine (2023). He shares with Pilgrim the desire to search, travel, and transform – primarily himself.

Painter and musician Roman Hudziec is a native of Karviná. He studied in Uherské Hradiště (1983 – 1987) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1987 – 1993) in the studio of Pavel Nešleha. In 1995 he worked as a visiting teacher at Sherborne Boys School in England. After nine years of teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts (1995 – 2003), he gladly went freelance, where he still balances today. His inclination to wander led him to a keen interest in the forest, which became the basic inspiration for his work. During one of his stays in the Mionší nature reserve in the Beskydy Mountains, he “accidentally” met a group from Pilgrim and since then he has not wandered exclusively alone. He is the author (together with Kryštof Krejča) of a number of exhibitions at the Prague Zoo. He lives and sometimes works in Korycany.

Jana's activities range from singing and dancing to ecology, education and traveling. She enjoys connecting environmental and social issues with art and is open to new projects with a desire to constantly educate herself. That is why in 2018 she joined the filming of the documentary Happy Farmers. Her work activities and projects focus on the topics of organic farming, food, connecting farmers and consumers and environmental education. She is actively involved with the organizations Association of Local Food Initiatives, Lovime.bio, Social Enterprise Envira, Pilgrim, Forest Academy of Mentaurs and Tyfloturistický squad. She is currently studying at the Farmer's College and lives in Litoměřice near the vineyard where she works.

A designer working at the intersection of digital technology, visual culture, and social innovation. He enjoys developing innovative forms of collaboration and supports projects that, in one way or another, aim to cultivate democracy in the sense described by Vandana Shiva . Currently, alongside his design work under the label pospolu.design he is primarily focused on civic participation and activities within the degrowth movement.At Pilgrim, he is mainly responsible for the website and the book section.

Facilitator, therapist, essayist and poet. He studied biochemistry at Masaryk University in Brno. He worked for a long time at the Partnership Foundation, where he was mainly dedicated to supporting communities and citizen participation. He helps municipalities, cities, schools, public institutions, etc. through facilitation. In 2023, he co-founded Klidem – Institute for Ecotherapy. In his facilitation and therapeutic work, he is inspired by analytical (CG Jung), process-oriented (Arnold Mindell) and archetypal (James Hillman, Thomas Moore) psychology. He is also a co-founder of the Waldorf-oriented primary school DiviZna in Kuřim. He contributed his texts to a book of photographs dedicated to children with cancer Bigger than a big challenge (Second City, 2020). In 2022, he published his first work of poetry in the same publishing house Meeting.

Lecturer, photographer and bass player in the musical-visual project “echoing souls”. He studied at the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University in Opava. He worked in a total of two Operational Programmes of the Czech Republic, financed from EU funds, focused on environmental education of children. He participated in them, among other things, in the development of a methodology for teachers, operating on the principles of experiential pedagogy. He now works in the prevention section of the non-profit organization ČSAP, which is dedicated to supporting people living with HIV. The Pilgrim association is his second home.

At that time, a cat lover, he lives, breathes and connects. A supporter of year-round splashing in the river and walking in nature and on embers. He is interested in mythology and psychology, takes photographs, organizes interest lectures of the Collegium Stepní vlka and has already given quite a few lectures since 2006. He wrote a collection of domestic variations of haiku Bronze cat eye mirror (Malvern 2020). She attends the informal association Coffins and Wreaths, works in an animal crematorium, supports natural burial; she is involved in the initiative for the creation of a common natural cemetery for people and animals and for this purpose she founded the association Common Footprints of the Prairies. Her credo: "Carpe diem, when we are already alive".

He studied general biology at the JE Purkyně University (today Masaryk University) in Brno. He worked as a plant specialist at the Central Control and Testing Institute of Agriculture all his life. He is interested in architecture, contemporary art and is increasingly fascinated by nature. Life is a koan for him.

She studied landscape architecture (at Corvinus University in Budapest, SUA in Nitra and Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague); she has been involved with landscape all her life and is most fascinated by river landscapes. She started working as a designer at URBION Banská Bystrica and as a landscape specialist at the Department of the Chief Architect in Banská Bystrica. Later, she headed the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague and taught at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. She currently works at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague, where she teaches landscape courses and runs the Atelier Salzmann/Bečvářová, which is dedicated to large-scale landscape projects and the landscape of the border region. She has been involved in the issue of landscape in spatial planning and its adaptation to climate change for a long time. In Slovakia, she founded the Strom života movement, the School of Folk Culture in Zaježová near Zvolen, and initiated the rescue of the Čiernohronské narrow-gauge railway. Today she lives and works in the Brdy forests below the Třemšín mountain. She is also the author of the project Restoration of the Landscape of the Czech-German Borderland as part of the Pilsen European Capital of Culture 2015 project.

Cultural ecologist, environmentalist and naturalist. He studied Environmental Protection and Creation at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Prague in Olomouc and Humanities Environmental Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Prague in Brno. He received his doctorate at the same institution under the supervision of Zdeněk Neubauer, into whose world of thought he was allowed to make trips for half his life, and who fundamentally influenced him. He focuses on the emergence of knowledge in personal dialogue with people and the more-than-human world, which is why he devotes most of his time to students, friends and living nature. In his teaching practice, he tries to convey ideas and experiences that affirm the spontaneity and authenticity of the living world. This effort also brought him to Pilgrim. He currently works at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Prague in Olomouc and the Faculty of Humanities of Charles University in Prague, where he lectures on topics at the interface of environmentalism, natural sciences and philosophy.

He deals with the relationships between humans and the more-than-human world from various perspectives: he thinks about them philosophically, researches them scientifically, experiences them physically, and transforms them pedagogically and activistically. He has always been driven by a strong curiosity, combined with wonder, in an attempt to understand the world. Since he always had a (partly naive) belief in the honesty, meaningfulness, and openness of academic institutions, this initially led him to many years of diverse studies – from computer science (MFF UK) to social and cultural ecology (FHS UK) to a doctorate in environmental philosophy (FSS MU). Disillusionment with academic science and some of his own personal experiences led him to develop other, richer, and deeper ways of exploring and cultivating the relationship to the more-than-human world. And also to the realization that reason alone is not enough in this regard. Influenced by his mentor and long-time friend Tomáš Daňek, philosopher David Abram, and Martin Lee Műler, he began to devote himself more to deep-sea ecology, which led him to Pilgrim.

is a holistic designer, a pioneer of wellbeing and sustainability, who is a passionate advocate of lifelong development and social change, as well as an enthusiastic promoter of conscious landscape travel. She graduated from the University of Economics (international trade, international politics and diplomacy) and her life has been shaped by diverse professional experiences from business and management positions in several companies, including experience with her own business in the field of healthy food, with the creation of start-ups focused on opening the topic of wellbeing at work (MyRefresh) or on the development of organizations and cooperative skills, based on sharing power, self-organization, the power of connecting reason and heart (Evolucio) and on supporting creators of social change at a societal level (ASHOKA CZ&SK). Míša is constantly developing in areas such as systems thinking, co-creation of the future and designing comprehensive solutions for current and future planetary challenges.

is a painter and graphic artist. He lives in Prštice with his wife and two daughters, one cat and a small garden. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Brno, Painting II studio of prof. Martin Mainer, and completed his studies in 2012. For him, painting is a lifelong process of learning about the surrounding and inner world. In his paintings, he combines inspiration from near and faraway journeys (painting symposium in Meghalaya, India, Brazil). He also tries to share knowledge and joy from creation within the framework of school class projects, both at his home school in Prštice and, for example, at the elementary school in Přerov as an artist in the Creative Partnership project. He deepens his interest in self-knowledge through creation, in understanding the functioning of the human mind and his connection with the surrounding natural world by studying Eco Art Therapy.

www.janprazan.com

She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Brno University of Technology and after graduating she worked for 2 years at the then District Centre for State Monument Care and Nature Protection. After another 22 years of caring for her family and children, inspired by Jiří Zemánek's exhibition "From the Earth Over the Hill to the Sky... About Walking, Pilgrimage and Sacred Landscapes", she returned to longer walks and journeys through the countryside and regularly participates in many Pilgrim activities. She currently works in social services. She lives in Pošumaví, Olomouc and Brno.

Vystudovala Vysokou školu zemědělskou v Brně. Při výchově 5 dětí naslouchala a snažila se porozumět hlasu Matky Země. Žije na malém hospodářství v Olomouci s kozou a slepicemi. Řadu let se zabývala rozvojem přírodního pohřbívání a umění loučení s těmi, kteří opustili tento svět.

Současné aktivity směřují k hlubšímu pochopení a prezentaci myšlenek v papežské encyklice Laudato si’. Je členkou týmu Žít Laudato si’ ČR. Inspiraci a cestu k vlastní proměně a růstu čerpá především na pěších poutích a komunikací s přírodou a jejími tvory.

"Bože, Alfo a Omego stvořeného světa, jsme na cestě k tobě. Děkujeme ti za tvou lásku, která dává našemu putování směr a smysl. Nutíš nás cestou procházet propastmi, i když se na to necítíme dost silní. Dáváš nám jako oporu lidi, kteří jdou s námi a posilují nás, když jsme slabí, povzbuzují nás, když se nám zdá, že už nemůžeme…“

Director, Indologist and ethnozoologist. In her doctoral research, she dealt with the clash between the Western zoological paradigm and the animistic perception of the world among the tribal population of Bengal. She also deals with the relationship between humans and other animals and the human relationship with the rest of nature in her film, essay and curatorial work. For five years, she worked on the permanent editorial board of the Czech Television environmental program Občanské noviny. She collaborates with the Biological Center of the Academy of Sciences, the magazine A2 and the ethnobiological anthology Pandanus. She interprets from Bengali to refugees from sinking Bangladesh. She recently completed her feature-length documentary debut about power and totem animals Amoosed.