Support the first book by the art collective Prádelna (The Laundry Collective)

The Laundry Collective is a group of women who have come together to help change people’s perceptions of the unhoused. They draw on their own experiences with living on the streets, and they are very familiar with the obstacles that prevent people from living with dignity. They say that poverty and homelessness are not just about a lack of money but also about loneliness and the loss of contact with others. That’s why they have created a place where practical help mixes with art. Using a mobile studio/laundromat, they offer people without access to sanitation the opportunity to wash and dry their clothes. They meet regularly and do various activities such as writing, drawing, or making films. Their activities bring different people together and foster a space to share experiences and create together. The book symbolically caps off the first five years of the collective, which has been working together intensively since the Covid-19 pandemic. Since 2024 the collective has been operating its mobile laundromat in the Jahodnice district of Prague during the summer months.

The nonprofit cultural organization and publishing house tranzit.cz was founded in 2002. It has been cooperating with the Laundry Collective for a long time, and they have realized several projects together. In 2022 the Laundry Collective’s film Expressing the Desire for the Impossible was screened at the Prague Festival of Performance Art and subsequently won first prize at the Marienbad Film Festival. As part of the 2022 Biennale Matter of Art in Prague, the collective “occupied” a selected room in the exhibition space of the Prague City Gallery in the Municipal Library with a participatory installation. In 2023 they were invited to the Kiev Biennial held in Vienna, where they presented their video The Yellow is Black. tranzit.cz has long supported the creation of new artworks and books. In recent years, its most visible projects have included the international contemporary art exhibition Biennale Matter of Art, which has been taking place in Prague since 2020, the Prague Festival of Performance Art, and activities in the field of making art accessible to a wider audience by using alternative education methods. The tranzit.cz publishing house has released a number of books, including the literary debut of artist Bára Bažantová about her project in the Janov housing estate in Litvínov, an essay about overlooked professions in culture by Tereza Stejskalová, and a collectively created children’s newspaper, the content of which was prepared by a group of twenty schoolchildren at workshops organized by tranzit.cz.

The money from the fundraiser will be used to produce the book so that we can pay the authors and everyone involved a fair fee for their work. We are raising money for royalties for the artists, the graphic design, and printing the book.