In České Budějovice, the exhibition "The Intestines of Cities" has begun

Cesky Budejovice - Black-and-white and color photographs of channel sewers and covers from world metropolises, as well as books from the mid-19th century with illustrations of bathroom and sanitary facilities, can be found by visitors at the exhibition "The Instincts of Cities - Sewers in Cultural and Civilizational Contexts." It is organized by the National Technical Library in Prague, and interested parties can view it from today until the end of March in the foyer of the regional office.
     "The exhibition presents sewage not only in urbanistic but also in cultural-historical contexts. This remarkable underground system has unnoticed architectural qualities by the public, such as vault systems, as well as literary, film, and other connections," said the curator of the exhibition from the National Technical Library, Michal Janata, to CTK.
     The Instincts of Cities are primarily a call to both the broader and professional public to pay as much attention to this underground counterpart of the visible parts of cities as to the secrets that this labyrinthine world still conceals.
     Visitors to the exhibition will see photographs of manhole covers by artist and graphic designer Michal Cihlář, who has been conceptually capturing them for the eighth year, as well as sculptor, painter, graphic artist, and editor Viktor Karlík, who has been dedicated to Prague's sewers since 1988. Even more captivating are the colored photos of underground areas of the sewers taken by speleologist Daniel Hrdý, who has been photographing them for the Prague Waterworks and Sewage since 2007.
     The exhibition also provides interesting data for those interested. For instance, the sewer network in London measured 2100 kilometers from 1860 to 1870, whereas its more famous counterpart in literature and films - Paris - was only 773 kilometers.
     A catalog is part of the exhibition, which brings a text about sewage and period sewage literature from the historical collection of the National Technical Library and an expanded version of the artistic component of the exhibition.