Prague Diary by Iwan Baan
Excerpt from the exhibition Iwan Baan: Prague Diary at the Centre for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning (CAMP) in Prague.
Last summer, Iwan Baan, a world-renowned architecture photographer, visited and photographed Prague for the first time in his life: seven days with a camera in hand – on foot, on a bike, and from a helicopter – through the center, the periphery, and the landscape along the Vltava River. He now presents his work, which shows the city as raw, often neglected, and miles from the glossy pictures in tourist guides. The exhibition, entitled Iwan Baan: Prague Diary, runs until August 20, 2023 at CAMP.
The exhibition is conceived as an imaginary urban pilgrimage, permeated by four thematic levels: first contact with the city, the center, the periphery, and natural scenery. The visitor is free to wander through them and get lost in the different nooks. A large-format projection in the exhibition hall is dedicated to Baan’s aerial photographs; visitors to the exhibition thus have the unique opportunity to see Prague from unusual angles and in unsuspected contexts. On the opposite wall of the exhibition hall, the exposition reveals almost all the photographs that Iwan Baan took in Prague. Raw, unedited, random. Accompanied by an audio commentary recorded by Iwan Baan himself, the visitor can thus get a glimpse into the “behind the scenes” of the photographer’s creative method.