Barbora Haplová

MgA. et MgA. Barbora Haplová

Barbora Haplová is an author, graphic designer and artist. She graduated from Theatre Theory and Criticism at DAMU in Prague and Graphic Design and Visual Communication at UMPRUM. As her diploma thesis she created a sticker album / book of essays on political kitsch and propaganda, Retrievers and Dictators, in the Type Design and Typography Studio. She is an author of stories for children (Vladana and Prasopes, Indecisive Harold, A Journey to the Cockroach Paradise). Her novel debut, Escape Routes, was published by Vyšehrad Publishing House in 2022. Since 2022 she has been pursuing a post-master's artistic research in which she explored empty space in art, life and graphic design through experimental work with the interplay of visual material and textual commentary. Barbora's work is mostly concerned with the intersection of literary work and conceptual graphic design. She has been a PhD student at UMPRUM since 2023.

The power of perceiving (too much). A highly sensitive immersive book.

The project aims to explore and mediate the perception of the highly sensitive person (HSP) through the medium of a book and its possible exceeding of its space. This will be explored using means that I characterize as immersive. In this terminology, I draw on theatre theory, where immersive theatre uses specific tools to draw in its spectator-participant and give them the opportunity to participate equally in the creation of the theatrical work.

In my project I oscillate between the book-object on the one hand and the book, the traditional medium for transmitting something that is not there right now, on the other. Thus, the main research question is how to create a highly sensitive immersive book. It is intended to move on a certain level of narrative, because for me this is the source of reading continuity and, consequently, of immersion. However, narrative in a broader sense can also unfold through graphic, material, performative, manipulative means, as can be seen as well in contemporary immersive exhibitions.