Belonging

The Concept

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Belonging is an investigative project exploring the intersection of psychogeography and urban orientation in Prague. The project was born from a period of spatial alienation—a feeling that the city remained "illegible" and distant.

I hypothesized that belonging is a form of knowledge. To feel grounded in the center, I first had to understand the limits of the container. I chose the Prague Tram Network as my structural framework, treating its lines as the "veins" of the city that connect the center to its absolute edges.

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The Methodology

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Using a Cartesian approach (North, South, East, West), I walked 35.5 kilometers over two days to reach the terminal points of the tram lines.

 

The Walk: Inspired by Hamish Fulton’s "no walk, no work," the physical act of movement was the primary artistic practice.

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The Triggers: I captured 50 photographs based on intuitive psychological triggers—moments of friction or connection between my body and the environment.

 

The Artifact: A 5.5-meter accordion book (Leporello) that maps the journey on a precise scale where 25cm of paper equals 1km of walking. The "voids" or white spaces between images represent the actual distance and time spent as a stranger in the terrain.

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The Realization

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The project identifies the distinct characters of Prague's four corners:

 

North: Quiet, residential nodes.

 

West: Vertical, uniform apartment blocks.

 

South & East: Industrial highway belts and emerging modern centers.

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Drawing on Kevin Lynch’s urban theory, the project concludes that orientation is the opposite of fear. By defining these boundaries, the city became legible, transforming an abstract space into a grounded place of belonging.