Photographer Martijn Schmidt’s visual dialogue with Czech village folklore. Schmidt lives in the Netherlands and studied at the University of the Arts Utrecht, specializing in documentary photography. His work is rooted in encounters with others, 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 came to be.
“After Kytice” began in the summer of 2005, when Schmidt’s parents bought a house in a small village in North Bohemia, Czech Republic. Although it has become a second home, it also feels a bit far away. Twenty years later, Schmidt is back and sees the village no longer just as a vacation spot, but as a vibrant community where life goes on whether he’s around or not. The project explores the rhythms of the Czech countryside, where seasonal rituals and traces of the past exist both in nature and in humans. Inspired by Karel Jaromír Erben’s 1853 collection of poems, the images blend myth and reality, including personal memories and present-day observations.
