UNTITLED (Czechoslovakia, 1975-1981)
In Czechoslovakia in the 1970s there was one group who were largely able to avoid the socialist dictatorship: the students. In the shelter of the university campus they dedicated themselves to their own form of collectivism, far away from their harassed elders and the state-regulated society. They looked upon the ever-present politics as an unavoidable form of folklore. The Western souvenirs that students everywhere leave lying around were illustrations of their freer opinions and possibilities. Thus the campus was the place par excellence where the romanticization of the West took shape. Stano Pekár was one of the photographers who documented this youth culture, with the zest for living and outspokenness of his subjects.
