They usually stand at the beginning. They are important and irreplaceable. Fulfilling them clears out space for more. Because dreams are something we need. As hope and consolation ... in times when the stuffiness of the ordinary fills the days and repetition ceases to be the mother of wisdom.
What happens when people who love dreams meet? The dreams begin to be pleasantly contagious. And things start happening ... hideandseek starts happening.
Iva Javorská, the feminine element which gives our grouping of testosterone an exceptional dynamic. An attorney from the university Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Our support in legislative questions and copyright and economic law. She lectures at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, helps artists with concerns touching on copyright. A lover of running in the winter when it is freezing outside and the cold air burns in the nose. She is the picture of elegance and sometimes makes fun of the rest of us with a straight face.
Vladimír, impossible to miss. A firm handshake, firm convictions. You can be sure that if he were refused water from the tap at the court of England, he would refuse all 63 meal courses, rise, press his lips together firmly, glance at the Queen in a melancholic way, bow and leave. And never return. A friend for whom the words please and thank you are always enough. A lover of wines (and everything that goes with them), the Mongolian night sky and human skill. Also a lad from the Orlice River and co-inventor of the fiberglass sleeping bag. A contextual intermedia conceptualist who connects irrelevancies with a passionate exactitude of which it is good to assume that it need not be definitive. Stunning work with a dummy as a precondition for the creation of art pieces. Calm and strong. Father and swimmer.
Pavel Svoboda is something of a sprite. A graphic and stage designer, photographer, a lover of clean football and occasional fabulation and provocation. He had almost the quickest computer in the world. Under that and among it all is the soul of a romantic and humorist. He likes a lot of things, including late arrivals, rock music (and everything that comes with it), opera and roasting sausages on an open fire. When he doesn’t hear you, he has headphones. When he doesn’t like something, you will very soon know it. The sprite becomes a goblin…
Lovely man in the time of kairos.
The architect Martin Kožnar, a reputed vegetarian, almost a fakir. Meticulous, responsible, always thorough. An architect who is humble and respectful of contextual dispositions, empathic of the set task. His exceptional sensitivity always gives his architectural decisions a reason, a meaning. An architect without flourishes. A lover of bathing in the river, the pond, the dam, and the more so if there is at least several centimeters of ice on the surface. The author of all the prototypes of the constructions of hideandseek, of which he has been a part since the beginning.
The tinsmiths from Hřibiny u Kostelce nad Orlicí – Jiřík and Bóďa – instrument technician, tour manager of Dan Bárta’s Ilustratosphere and rhetorician who has several thousand audiobooks in his archive, dozens of which are in his own voice. It is a pleasure to watch how scrolls of black sheet metal transform in their hands into drainpipes, vertical strips connected by an ingenious double welt, window panes, facade penetrations, hundreds of minute details – all this more like the work of a jewellery maker than a tin-smith. The eternal joyfully offered hot sweet Turkish coffee without milk and a rolled cigarette, eternal resourcefulness. They outspan their profession and elevate their work from craft to what is in its own way a kind of art.
Uničov – technician, constuctor, carpenter Pavel Hron, an artisan who creates products with such precision in detail that his artifacts seem almost inhumanly exact, cheerful and always optimistic, a person of incredible energy, the head of a processing plant, the employer of many people. A practitioner with whom it is possible to discover technological possibilities which at first seem to have no solution. A sportsman, lover of the sauna and running.
Dubice u České Lípy – Karel Prokop, a name declined in all the cases in the world of caravaning and his right and left hand both, Dáňa. A practitioner who likes to draw colourful schemata, and speaks his mind as soon as he thinks it. We have learned enough smut from him to make a specialized dictionary of Dubický jargon. Besides this he is an excellent host, specialist in electromotors, energy, solar cells. Karel is a man who is capable of gratifying the “aesthetes'', as he calls us at every opportunity he gets. A breeder and lover of animals of all kinds, incredible practitioner and specialist in all kinds of extensions and technical solutions for caravans. A great debater and expert in disciplines from flying on a hang glider to brewing rum, smoking sausages, making cider, electrobikes, go-carts. A man who will chat with a Roma in his own language, a smiling man and a good man.
Eduard Česnek: „Give me enough time and money and I will come up with everything for you.“ It might seem that more humility mightn’t be amiss, but in the case of Eda this is true, and even humbly packaged. Our expert in cybernetics, who during our debates sits in concentrated silence and listens, and when he then speaks speaks pertinently, and with structure, in a way that is planned and pragmatic. He never comes late. He spent several years in Turkey and the USA inventing and testing a method of mining oil from digs from which no-one else can mine it. He was in charge of coal mines. Eda is putting together our monitoring system, long-range communication and everything connected with electronics. He sometimes stops eating and this lasts him over a month. He is curious and there is no discipline that does not fascinate him. Actually there is – he doesn’t like wine, beer or coffee, whereby he differs from the rest of us considerably.
As natural as a beautiful woman of a nomad tribe, Aranka keeps the fire going effortlessly, creating a cordial home around the hearth. Her wild spirit of independence and wisdom of deep lakes breath from her very existence. Aranka aims for perfection yet remains accessible and friendly, heating up both the body and soul of her guest at the wood stove and sauna.
Diogenes would pick this one. As strict, minimal and ascetic as a woman can be, she focuses on the pure and the genuine. Avoiding excess does not affect her generosity and welcoming nature in the least. She is the kind of woman that takes you for midnight adventures in the forest and swimming in the stream and gets you out of bed with a fresh cup of coffee made over a fire when the sun comes up.
Jasněnka is all about light. Energy runs through the semi-transparent walls, wrapping you in a new experience of you in space. In exchange for respect she will give you protection within walls that connect rather than divide. She is the kind of woman that gives you blessings to roam free as long as you like and fondles you at the fireplace when you get back. She smells of pine, sunshine and earth and tastes like a full bodied red wine.