From popular images of ‘exotic’ peoples to collecting artifacts and borrowing motifs in architecture and design, Czechs have long engaged with global cultures. Criticisms of colonial attitudes and practices are usually made of large European empires; how pertinent are they to Czech case?

The project Czechs and the Colonial World examines how Czechs became involved in and sought to understand non-European societies and cultures through visual culture. It considers how such encounters were also informed Czech ideas of identity. It analyses the social, political and cultural factors shaping such ideas, and explores how attitudes and representations developed during the period studied by the project.