SHINY PEOPLE CLUB

I’m Vendula, the kind of person who puts on lipstick first and only then brushes her teeth.  In 2018 I went through a devastating burnout and left on my own for a year to Mexico. I brought back a souvenir in the form of a boyfriend from Venezuela, with whom I unexpectedly got pregnant, and in 2019 I gave birth to my daughter Alba. She wasn’t planned, but she came at the best possible time.

This new life chapter in the form of motherhood started teaching me responsibility, which I had successfully ignored until then, and with that came the opening of Pandora’s boxes.
And that usually hurts quite a lot. Like, really a lot. We all have these boxes, and anyone who allows themselves to open them — welcome to the Shiny People Club.

My sophisticatedly painful humor served as a defense mechanism for trauma that I have been dealing with over the past years through intensive psychotherapy. In this never-ending series of embroideries, I aesthetically process my meltdown.

Dysfunctional life patterns, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, ADHD, financial illiteracy, overthinking, problems with my mother, and my hypersensitivity. I am therefore officially founding the Shiny People Club, a space for all your unjustified feelings of guilt, worries, anxieties, and guilty pleasures.

Did you know that Kim Kardashian farts too?

List of works [ PDF ]

Vendula Knopová (*1987) is photographer, currently based in Prague, Czech Republic. She has studied at the Departement of Advertising Photography at Tomáš Baťa University (Zlín, Czech Republic). In 2016 she was awarded by Grand Prix de Jury at the International Festival of Fashion and Photography in Hyères. Moreover, in 2015 she received Arte Creative Award (Portfolio Review Düsseldorf) and Grand Prix at Poznań Photo Diploma Awards, as well as in 2013 ON Award at OFF Festival in Bratislava. Her work was presented at several exhibitions in Czech Republic and abroad...

EDUCATION
2007-2015 (MgA.) Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic, Department of Advertising Photography
2003-2007 Secondary School of Art and Design, Brno, Czech Republic, Department of Photography

AWARDS
2017 Photographer of the Year 2016 / Czech Grand Design Awards / Prague / Czech Republic
2017 Vienna Contemporary / Honorary mention / Art Fair / Artproof production / Vienna / Austria
2016 31th International festival of fashion and photography / GRAND PRIX DU JURY / Hyéres / France
2016 Plat(t)form / EMERGING ARTIST / Fotomuseum Winterthur / Switzerland
2015 Poznan Photo Diploma Award / Grand Prix / 9th Biennale of Photography / Poznan / Poland
2015 Portfolio Review Düseldorf / ARTE Creative Award / Düsseldorf / Germany
2013 Off Festival Bratislava / ON Award / Bratislava / Slovakia
2012 International Photo Competition Frame / 1st place / Prague / Czech Republic
2009 Czech Press Photo / 3rd place Sony Junior Awards / Prague / Czech Republic

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
British Journal of Photography / Numéro Art / i-D / POP-Kulture & Kritik / CO – Curate Magazine / The Obsession of Seeing / A Part Publications / Dienacht Magazine / Dolce Vita Magazine/ Fotograf Magazine / Ordinary Magazine / Liberation Newspaper / GUP Magazine / Temple Magazine / Madame Figaro/ Joia Magazine / Prism Magazine / Bolero Magazine / Vice / Harper's Bazaar / S&D magazine...