Broumov, CZ is a city of absences. It was built by Czech Germans who were violently deported from Czechoslovakia after the war, and then filled in by Czech laborers relocated by the regime and a marginalized Roma community with nowhere else to go. In recent years, a generation of Czech transplants have settled in the area, attracted by a low cost of living, beautiful surroundings, and a sense of untapped potential. Each of these groups live in parallel Broumovs that do not necessarily coincide. As such, Broumov is a city constantly being written - an absence calling to be filled. As part of the Cycle Up! Residency, I used biking as a strategy to share these parallel Broumovs between Broumovians. After all, biking is a form of narration – of montage – where, instead of stringing words together, one strings places and memories together by moving through them. Perhaps a place can only truly exist if someone is there to live through it.

So, I created a bike, akin to a Google Streetview car, which has a camera and takes pictures of the street every 30 seconds as one rides. I gave the bike to Broumovians and asked them to take the bike to places that “matter”, curating a route that reflects their experience of Broumov. On each ride, the images taken were streamed live into an exhibition space, forming a performance of comparison and connection with the images taken by other riders. Finally, an archive was formed of flipbooks depicting the images from each route. Participants took the bike to their homes, to their community centers, to storks’ nests, capturing friends, family, and long-lost acquaintances, folding them all into the map of what Broumov might be and who it may include. Perhaps, in the process, they found a Broumov they never really knew.

This project was supported by Cycle Up!, the Goethe Institut Tschechien, Czech Centres and Broumov 2028+.

Summer 2025