Through the center, the periphery, and the landscape along the Vltava River. It is a hot August day, the sidewalk burns, the air is heavy. The pulse of the city beats in a slow rhythm, the atmosphere is sleepy. Prague does not feel like a big city, nor does it experience a significant influx of tourists. Photographer Iwan Baan walks its streets for the first time. He is driven by curiosity and the desire to discover. He listens to the sounds of the city, trying to understand the language it speaks. He perceives its past, its character, omitting neither its landmarks nor its forgotten corners. He reacts with sensitivity to its diversity and contradictions. He visually narrates the city’s extraordinary story.

Iwan Baan's poetic image of the city carries a bleakness and neglect. It is not based on a picturesquely underwhelming likability, but a reality that must be confronted. Seven days with a camera in hand, on foot, on a bicycle, from a height—as is typical for him. On the move, in constant motion, yet time seems to stand still in his photos. Miniature human figures in stiff poses are asking for attention. The architecture near them is captured as if accidentally.

The title of the exhibition Iwan Baan: Prague Diary was based on the artist's Instagram account ‘A diary of travels with the iPhone’. The idea of endless wanderings through the city from one end to the other, recorded in the form of a pictorial diary, was part of the Prague exhibition concept since the initial idea of a joint project. The exhibition was therefore conceived as an imaginary urban pilgrimage, linearly permeated by four thematic levels—the first contact with the city, the center, the periphery and natural scenery. The visitor could intuitively walk through them, symbolically getting lost in various corners, discovering new places and returning to those notoriously familiar.

The exhibition also introduced the personality of Iwan Baan as an artist, author and one of the most respected documentarians of architecture, who became widely known for his impressive aerial photographs. The audiovisual part of the exhibition was dedicated to these images and was concentrated on a large wall. It highlighted traffic junctions, buildings or the historic center, photographed in such intensity for the first time. In contrast, a niche at the back of the exhibition revealed almost all the images that Iwan Baan took in Prague. Raw, unedited, random.

Photography as such was then accentuated throughout the exhibition space. Its forms of presentation were deliberately varied. The aim was to bring to the fore not only the facts it captured, but also to emphasize its importance as a medium.