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Every year, dozens of students in the Czech Republic graduate from art schools, but only a few of them actually succeed in establishing themselves on the art market. Two years ago, Jana Laštovka, herself a graduate of the Prague Fine Arts Academy, established a unique online gallery that specializes in selling works of young artists, helping them gain recognition. Since it was founded, the young Real Art gallery has sold hundreds of artworks.

For the last two years, Tereza Porybná has been the director of the Czech Centre in London. Under her leadership, the UK branch of the international network of cultural institutes is working to cultivate a cool, modern image of the Czech Republic via projects in fields such as the performing arts and design. Last week I discussed its work with Porybná in her office at the Czech Centre, which is in the fashionable Covent Garden district.

For twenty years now, the Prague-based Institute of Bohuslav Martinů has been assembling all available material on the great Czech composer, making it available to anyone interested in his life and work. It has also started to publish Bohuslav Martinů’s extensive complete editions, a work which is expected to continue for the next fifty years.

A new exhibition currently on display at Prague’s Centre for Contemporary Art presents an experimental project by architecture students from Prague and Bratislava, who created a so-called parallel membrane city. Urbo Kune, which means a common city in Esperanto, was designed for an old quarry in Prague’s Zbraslav. The laid-out model of the utopian city can be seen at DOX until mid-January.

The average European throws out around one hundred kilos of foodstuffs every year, and the Czech Republic is no exception. For several years now, an initiative called Zachraň Jídlo or Save Food has been trying to prevent the enormous waste as well as raise Czechs’ awareness of the problem. Along with organising food donations, it attempts to provide information and solutions to all participants in the food chain, from producers to distributors and consumers.

The Czech Republic this year witnessed one of the driest summers in its history, and experts predict that heatwaves, as well as other weather extremes, are to occur more frequently in the future. In view of these predictions, the Czech government has put together a team of experts to outline measures that will help fight floods and droughts.

The plight of refugees was among the key themes at this year’s Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, with films such as Sean McAllister’s heartrending A Syrian Love Story helping bring the real lives of the hundreds of thousands of stateless persons in Europe home to audiences at the biggest event in Czech documentaries.

The tiny pest known as the bark beetle, which has repeatedly infested coniferous forests at the country’s Šumava National Park, has sparked a number of controversies over the past decades, on whether to chop the infested trees down or let the forest deal with the outbreak without human intervention. A recent survey carried out by Czech scientists, published in the prestigious Journal of Applied Ecology strongly suggests that the forest is able to deal with the situation on its own.

A special event marking 125 years since the birth of Bohuslav Martinů will take place in London this Wednesday, October 21st. Organised by the Czech Centre and Nonclassical label, along with the Bohuslav Martinů Institute, the happening will present the great 20th century Czech composer through London’s contemporary classical and electronic music scene. We have more in this weeks’ edition of In Focus:

For the fifth year in a row, the Prague Czech Chess Association, in cooperation with Czech Railways, is organising a rather unusual international chess tournament. It takes place on board a train that goes from Prague to Vienna and back. Ruth Fraňková went to check-out the event and has more in this edition of In Focus: