Fast Confession - Eliška Podzimková: Czech Artist Scored at Jamie Oliver

You said that you will hurry to the interview from some photoshooting session. What did you photograph?

Each month I take a portrait photo of one person from the deaf community. Then I supplement it by a drawing according to their personality or what they do. Every month there is an interview with one person, published by the Quiet World (Tichý svět). In the end it will be compiled into a calendar. We started in January so next year there will be a launching ceremony.

I assume that it is pro bono...

Prodej luxusní vily, Praha 6 - Nebušice – 312, Praha 6

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Yes, this is not paid work. I enjoy and am fascinated by the various fates of these handicapped people. Their view of the world is sincere and objective. And their fates are sometimes really very interesting.

Are you not fascinated by it primarily because you yourself have undergone tumour disease? 

Perhaps so, I have some tendencies towards that, but at the same time I am mainly involved in children´s oncology, I don´t feel that link with other diseases, it´s not really my thing. For the first time now I am trying to get involved in something that personally doesn´t concern me and it is fine with me, too. This is non-commercial and therefore for pro bono, but on the other hand they offered me courses of sign language and I have to say, why not?

In my mind you are more devoted to charity than normal people, I would even say more than the sick people themselves.

Today the topic of charity is quite awkward. It seems to me that people are starting to be allergic to it sometimes. Nowadays large businesses simply have to get involved in charity somehow seeking to reinforce their brand; to me it seems disgusting. It is becoming a phrase - I am doing charity, I am in a non-profit. Sometimes when I myself see how it is done in some organisations, when they open the door for me a little into their system, I don´t even want to see what is going on beyond that. Then there are of course organisations that really do something, help, do it well and are committed to it. But, frankly, if I did not have personal experience with it perhaps it would not pull me in so much.

That is clear... until you suffer yourself. Hardly anyone is interested just because...

That´s it. We now want to make a larger project with the Child Outpatient Oncology Dpt., kind of series about two children that are treated there. It should be half informative, half animated. Something like Once Upon a Time... Life, the French series about cells and blood cells...

I remember that, it was great!

Well, we would just update it a bit, set it in these times, make it a little documentary and even though I am not a fan of youtubers, put that in, too. It will be about the sharing of life, but not the dreamlike life, that I go every morning for an avocado sandwich and have a fantastic life, but that I have what I have, and that moreover a problem came and I have to be treated for a deadly disease. I actually think that I will try to find a way so that the general public gets interested in it, not just a group of people who are suffering. It is difficult, but manageable.

Are you yourself cured now?

Prodej slunného bytu 3+kk, Praha 2 - 104, Praha 2

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Yes, but we can never say that I am totally healthy. There is always some percentage that the illness will return. That is of course individual, but in my case ... I am more than ten years after the treatment, so it looks hopeful. But of course every year I undergo large-scale checks.

Do you still remember the day that you were diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma?

Yes, I remember, but it is true that as a sixteen-year old teenager I didn´t experience it the same way as for example my parents. I knew that I will be cured. At this age you simply do not realise that you may die. You do not reflect that you are facing something serious. I simply felt sick occasionally, nothing special. Today I would probably think differently about it than at that time, when I was a carefree child. Adults have something to learn from children.

But three years after that you left the nest, to see the world. Were you not afraid with that diagnosis to go to live in New York?

At one of those checks I announced to my doctor that I am moving to America; for a while she didn´t believe me, but after some debate we have arrived at a conclusion that there is no reason not to. The flight takes seven hours; if anything happened there wouldn´t be any problem to come back. In addition, I have already planned in advance when I will be home, so the checks were planned accordingly. Nowadays I don´t think that this is an obstacle. We have a huge choice of options. But I believe that my mother was very afraid.

Why did you feel then that you don´t want to be here?

Well, it is more complicated. Here in the Czech Republic in our home in Dobřichove lived an American student, for about half a year, one semester. It was my first discovery that English doesn´t have to be done just in front of the blackboard with an irritated teacher. Although she did not stay with us as part of any exchange stay, we have made it into one. Then I followed her to New York.

I like to say about Zoe that she is my American sister, we got on unbelievably well, I spend time with her parents and when she is here she goes to our place, my parents. We have somehow become intertwined. So when she left I went to her place for a whole summer. Thanks to that, that I knew someone there, it was all much easier. I experienced New York differently than a tourist. I was simply with the locals, I quickly fell into line. Then when I returned home, I thought about nothing else than how to get back. It charmed me.

Really? To me New York seems to be too overcrowded.

That´s true, but you have to understand that basically I had no puberty. At the time I dealt with slightly different things. Suddenly I felt that I can do everything. And New York is such a recharging place, there is an awful lot of options, I was suddenly freer, it is difficult to describe it.

Had you finished your studies?

I got a job offer directly from New York...

How can someone just get an offer from New York? I haven´t been offered anything. (laughter)

When I first came back I started to add illustrations to photos of places in New York which I enjoyed, I drew all sorts of silly things. I opened a special Instagram account, where I constantly kept adding these photos. I enjoyed it. It started a whirlwind period, people started to send their photos for me to amend them, that they want to see how I will do it. At one point a few daily papers wrote about me. On the day my photo was published on the front page of Metro, a film school director called me up to ask whether I wanted to work for him in marketing.

That conversation was funny. He was an older man and it was muffled over the phone, I hardly understood him; anyway, I realized that he was offering me a job. But I told him that I have to finish my baccalaureate studies. He waited for me. He waited for five months. Then I went there.

How long have you stayed on?

Over a year.

How did you manage to start cooperation with Jamie Oliver?

It happened because I edited a picture with Jamie where he is goes by tube. It was photographed by his main photographer, David Loftus, and I added into the window illustration of nature composed of vegetables and food. I sent it to him and he responded immediately that he forwarded it to Jamie. I was pretty shaken by that. Hell, Jamie Oliver! And a few months later they contacted me, whether that photo could be animated.

Did you meet directly with him?

No. This whole thing was dealt with by his team, which was preparing a Food Revolution Day, which is a great event where Jamie cooks with children and my video was used for its promotion. He must have been really busy, but the evening before the event he put the video on his Instagram and thanked me by e-mail. I shed a tear in front of my monitor. I did not expect Jamie Oliver to find the time to thank me for my work in person.

Did you get through your work to other famous people?

I do not know because maybe I didn´t know them. I once worked on an event for Vogue. One day I simply got an e-mail, if I want to participate in an event that was organised by Vogue itself, in a park. It was a week before the Met Gala ( https://www.vogue.com/tag/event/met-gala) that Dior will present new outfits on models.... I am not very keen on these events, actually I do not understand what is supposed to be interesting about it, but I told myself that one doesn´t refuse an offer by Vogue.... (laughter)

Is it not a shame that you came back to Prague?

That way of life and work will completely take you out of the context of the city. I did not have any time to enjoy the city as when I was a tourist. Suddenly I began to realise that it is a really great place full of people. You don´t just meet someone on the street. It happened to me twice in a year and it seemed to me unreal at that moment. Gradually to find out where you feel to be at home. Maybe if you stay there for longer, you start to feel better, but I wanted to go home. I missed my family. I have a bond with my Mum and we are closer because of the illness; we´ve been through a lot together. I don´t regret that I went there nor that I came back.

What makes your work exceptional?

This combination technique is terribly old. The first films from Disney - real girl in a cartoon environment. I do not want to say that I found a niche in the market but people like it - real environment and at the same time some fantasy. I feel closer to it than to pure illustrations. I cannot explain it. This work is great, varied, each project is different. Sometimes I am just a photographer, sometimes only a graphic designer, director, or just ideamaker.

I could not help noticing that you stand out from the crowd, by your image, clothing.

In this sense, New York has taught me a lot. For example the realisation of my orientation, it was an initiative of that city. I told myself that no one knows me there and it worked. So I told myself that it will work here, too. Nobody will give me bad looks if I have a girlfriend. And seriously nobody is looking. They have all accepted it. But the truth is that New York is ahead in everything. I always say that what is "in” there, gets here in a year, sometimes even a year and a half.

So except that fully realised my orientation there, I got carried away by fashion, too, where there are no limits.

What do you think for example about partner registration?

We don´t have any plans like that with my partner Julia. We think it is demeaning, like if we went to register a car. It is humiliating. The process of the registration is that you take the paper, fill it in, take it to the office, pay five thousand crowns and go home. In addition, it doesn´t even give you the rights as marriage does. The symbolism of a wedding is lacking. So we do not have any plan like that. Children probably yes, I physically cannot have any, but we will see what happens in life. I have already wanted to adopt a child when I was fifteen. I like them.

Are you happy?

Very much.

Are you going to be lured to go back abroad?

It is hard to say, I don´t currently have any goal that I have to achieve. I take those offers as they come and I am very grateful that I can make a living through something that I really enjoy.

Thank you so much for the interview.