Title: Hitchhike US
Artist: Stanislav Bříza
Designer: Petr Mazoch
Editor: Self edited
Imprint: BFLMPSVZ
Printer: Helbich printer, Brno, Czech Republic
Publication date and place: 17th June 2016 / Prague, Page Five Bookstore
Edition: 500
Format, binding: Hardcover / V8 binding
Size: 165 x 215 cm
Number of pages and images: 95 pages / 108 images
Type of printing and paper: offset / Olin regular 115g
Retail price: £33
Book Description: Hitchhike US is a photography book which narrates an intimate relationship between two close friends – Stanislav and H. She is his best friend who has been suffering from an eating disorder for over 15 years, and her journey to her imagined USA is not just a romantic holiday but rather a hopeless attempt to escape the clutches of her struggle.
Their personal journey took place far from their homeland, alongside their adventurous trip across the USA, inspired by cliché of American dream, Hollywood films or beat and hippie generation. They were hitchhiking, eating wild mushrooms and sleeping under the sky, gorging in McDonalds and occasionally sleeping in cheap motels. They met loads of weirdos and generous people who offered them a lift, food, money, shelter or even bed in their house.
Their journey resulted in the loss of illusions and preconceptions, but with the gain of cognition about not only the American society but also themselves. And the diary logged throughout the journey was afterwards rewritten into a number of poems which gives reader further context about their experience.
Book Soundtrack:
- Title: Hitchhike US