A visual dialogue with the folklore of the Czech countryside by photographer Martijn Schmidt. Based in the Netherlands, Schmidt attended the University of Arts, Utrecht, where he specialized in documentary photography. His work is rooted in an engagement with the other, which often leads to a deeper understanding of his own identity. Through portraits, landscapes, and still lifes he explores how human practices, traditions, and beliefs are shaped.
“After Kytice” began in the summer of 2005, when Schmidt’s parents bought a house in a small village in North Bohemia, Czech Republic. While it became a second home, it also felt slightly distant. After two decades, Schmidt returned, no longer seeing the village merely as a holiday destination, but as a living community where life goes on regardless of his presence or absence. The project explores the rhythms of the Czech countryside, where seasonal rituals and traces of the past live on in both nature and people. Inspired by Karel Jaromír Erben’s 1853 poetry collection, the images blend myth and reality including personal memories, and present-day observations.
