Artist Šedá’s book of Czech “bad habits” in running for top award
The National Collection of Bad Habits, which to date has gathered tens of thousands of “confessions” from the public, is an often amusing online project run by leading Czech conceptual artist Kateřina Šedá. Now a book stemming from the collection is in the running for a top literary prize.
“I smuggle a vulgar word into every submission or contract. It has to look like a typo so that nobody notices. So far nobody has told me that they noticed anything.”
The above “vice” entered on the website of the National Collection of Bad Habits by Kristýna, a 37-year-old lawyer from Prague, is in many ways typical of the project.
To date it has accumulated over 36,000 “confessions” from members of the public and amassed loyal followers on social media.
The collection was the brainchild of Kateřina Šedá, a leading Czech conceptual artist known for such feats as installing 100 residents of a Moravian village at London’s Tate Modern for two days.
A recent element of the project has been the book National Collection of Bad Habits, which cherry-picks entries from the online version. It is now in the running for a coveted Magnesia Litera award, for publishing achievement of the year.
Kateřina Šedá discussed the volume on Czech Radio.
“My favourite submission is where a guy writes, ‘Our village is dead so whenever a bus comes I stand at the bus stop – and when it actually stops I scarper.’ It’s a prank, or maybe an act of spite, and we have other examples of such behaviour. And in the book I was interested in mapping where the borders of this kind of behaviour lie.”
The project began in 2022 as a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics. He is closely associated with Brno, Šedá’s hometown.
However, the concept has developed quite a bit since that time – and raised questions about what actually constitutes a bad habit.
“In the collection it’s defined as something that happens repeatedly and annoys you, either that you do or somebody else does. For instance, there’s a guy who collects absurd items – he’s proud of them, but his family consider this a bad habit. Or there’s a man in the book who admits he plants trees where they don’t belong. People on social media find this touching, but it’s actually against the law!”
As for her own interest in the subject, Kateřina Šedá says her involvement with the National Collection of Bad Habits is of a piece with her entire approach to art.
“For a long time I’ve been developing formats that people can take part in for free and which are accessible to more or less everybody. I understand art as something that isn’t built on things themselves, but on relationships… And I think bad habits bring us together. It’s behaviour that bothers us but that we also like, even in our partners. It differentiates us from others.”
The results of the 2026 Magnesia Litera awards will be announced on April 18 at a ceremony in Prague.
