マリー・トマノヴァによる、ほぼ10年間彼女を魅了してきたモデルへの賛歌

2017 was a tough year for Marie Tomanova. After the 2016 elections, when Trump was first elected President, the political climate in the US took a distinct turn for the worse and the Czech-born photographer was disturbed by a rising sense of “horrible anti-immigrant news and conservatism and intolerance”. She felt trapped in the US and somewhat disillusioned. At the time, she was in the midst of shooting portraits for a project that would become her debut photo book, Young American. She didn’t know it at the time, but she was on the cusp of a major breakthrough. Young American would establish her burgeoning reputation as a dynamic, exciting artist with a gift for creating fresh, engaging portraits of NYC’s youth culture. 

But that was all to come. On the morning she first met Kate – a Czech model living in Brooklyn – Tomanova had no assurances of her future ascent or the seminal role Kate would play in her life and work. “I first saw Kate on Instagram, and I loved her new little kitten, Cashew, and that she was from Czech,” Tomanova recalls. “I think in a way, [visiting Kate] was a way of escaping back to Czech, if only for a moment, an afternoon. When I got there, Odie, Kate’s girlfriend at the time, was also there and we all ended up in the bathroom so fast. I seem to use the word ‘magical’ a lot. I guess that’s because there’s no better word. Or maybe ‘miraculous’.”

That afternoon, Tomanova shot one 36-exposure roll, which, eight years later, is “the beating heart” of her new exhibition and accompanying book, Kate, For You – the photographer’s homage to their many years of working together. “It became a formative moment for me and it had nothing to do with Czech; all of that was forgotten in the middle of this divine energy of Kate and that new love with Odie. For me, it was all about the moment, the connection, the feeling, the togetherness. I realised right there that this is what photography for me is all about – relating to other people and being with other people. So maybe, this first roll of Kate and Odie is the most important moment for me as a photographer. It is about shared experience.”

Kate’s own recollections of that first encounter were equally enthusiastic, though the import of the meeting would register later. She tells us, “I was super excited ’cause I knew her work and loved it. I immediately felt so comfortable around her – I mean, I stripped naked and hopped into the bathtub not even five minutes after we shook hands hello. I can’t say it felt significant at the time, but our connection definitely felt special. The significance came later after seeing how the pictures came out.” 

Tomanova is uncomfortable with the word ‘muse’, given the problematic historical connotations of that dynamic, but Kate is certainly a figure who has continued to inspire Tomanova. “The muse concept seems to establish or reflect a power imbalance, which is the opposite of what I am about,” she tells us. “I am not sure why I feel close to Kate, but there is something deep and powerful and special that connects me to her in a mysterious way. I like her openness. I like her honesty. She is real.” 

A lot has changed for both of them since Tomanova shot that first roll of film in Kate’s Brooklyn apartment. Kate, For You traces the many shoots they’ve done since and the transformations and shifts their worlds have undergone. The exhibition includes a short film, Kate 2025, in which Tomanova has filmed the model looking back at their shared archive, many of which she hasn’t seen before. “It is almost as if Kate begins by looking at herself on a superficial level, but then goes deep into who she is and how she has changed since 2017… she is so frank and transparent. It is really moving.”

“When I look at the pictures, I see myself growing into my own skin,” Kate tells Dazed. “When Marie and I first met, I had just moved to New York. I was a mess. I felt so lost and out of place. But it was also the first time I felt fully independent. That independence allowed me to explore and grow, changing my hair, changing my career, changing my relationships, healing this, healing that… It was a lot of trial and error, but it got me here.”

It’s a significant moment of reflection for both of them. The exhibition and book coincide with the release of The World Between Us, Marie Dvořáková’s HBO documentary following Tomanova’s trajectory as an artist and her relationship with art historian and writer, Thomas Beachdel. Tomanova explains, “I had started curating exhibitions at the Czech Centre New York in 2016 as a part of their exhibition series. The last exhibition in this series was my solo show, Young American, in 2018, curated by Thomas Beachdel. And at the time, Marie Dvořáková, a director who had recently won a student Oscar, decided to do a short portrait of me for social media about the Young American show, and it just kept getting longer and longer. She kept filming for six years and decided to create a feature-length documentary at some point.” 

Looking back at her journey documented on-screen has brought up a lot of mixed emotions for Tomanova. While she remembers her abiding sense of uncertainty (“Back in 2017, it didn’t seem at all possible”) and her journal entries from the time which were “filled with the despair of being an undocumented immigrant, saddness that I couldn’t go home and doubting myself as a photographer”, she was also struck by her more untroubled approach to photography. “It surprised me to see myself so eternally happy and curious when walking around with the camera. I think I was more full of wonder five or six years ago, and the film made me realise that I don’t ever want to lose that. My life on the inside nowadays feels a bit more hectic, stressed with deadlines and projects. Sometimes I need to work hard to put the joy and childlike happiness back into this mad run. But I love photography and I love people – and I am so grateful that I can live my life like this. It is important for me to never forget this gratitude in the daily rush of things.”

There’s a perfect symbiosis about the timing of the documentary, the exhibition and the book. Not only does it create a unique opportunity for contemplation on the past seven years, but it also seems to highlight the reciprocal nature of these enmeshed creative relationships between women whose meetings all came about as a result of searching for meaning, for reassurance, and for inspiration. We rarely know when we are on the threshold of a really life-changing encounter with an as-yet unknown individual, or on the cusp of a defining new stage in our lives. “Change is so incremental and when you are in something, you don’t really notice it,” the photographer reflects. “One has to really step away or be apart from something to answer this question.” Back in 2017-18, neither Tomanova nor Dvořáková had any certainty that the work they were making would gather momentum or become career-defining, but, cameras in hand, they each followed their curiosity. And now, mediated through the lens, we can all watch those incremental changes unfold over the years and remind ourselves that new potential stories are beginning around us.

Marie Tomanova’s book Kate, For You (Untitled Publishing) is available to order here now. The New York launch will take place at Dashwood Books on Thursday 12 June, 2025. 

The exhibition Kate, For You takes place at Pražákův palác, Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic and will run from April 18 – 28 Sept, 2025.

That afternoon, Tomanova shot one 36-exposure roll, which, eight years later, is “the beating heart” of her new exhibition and accompanying book, Kate, For You – the photographer’s homage to their many years of working together. “It became a formative moment for me and it had nothing to do with Czech; all of that was forgotten in the middle of this divine energy of Kate and that new love with Odie. For me, it was all about the moment, the connection, the feeling, the togetherness. I realised right there that this is what photography for me is all about – relating to other people and being with other people. So maybe, this first roll of Kate and Odie is the most important moment for me as a photographer. It is about shared experience.”

Kate’s own recollections of that first encounter were equally enthusiastic, though the import of the meeting would register later. She tells us, “I was super excited ’cause I knew her work and loved it. I immediately felt so comfortable around her – I mean, I stripped naked and hopped into the bathtub not even five minutes after we shook hands hello. I can’t say it felt significant at the time, but our connection definitely felt special. The significance came later after seeing how the pictures came out.” 

Tomanova is uncomfortable with the word ‘muse’, given the problematic historical connotations of that dynamic, but Kate is certainly a figure who has continued to inspire Tomanova. “The muse concept seems to establish or reflect a power imbalance, which is the opposite of what I am about,” she tells us. “I am not sure why I feel close to Kate, but there is something deep and powerful and special that connects me to her in a mysterious way. I like her openness. I like her honesty. She is real.” 

A lot has changed for both of them since Tomanova shot that first roll of film in Kate’s Brooklyn apartment. Kate, For You traces the many shoots they’ve done since and the transformations and shifts their worlds have undergone. The exhibition includes a short film, Kate 2025, in which Tomanova has filmed the model looking back at their shared archive, many of which she hasn’t seen before. “It is almost as if Kate begins by looking at herself on a superficial level, but then goes deep into who she is and how she has changed since 2017… she is so frank and transparent. It is really moving.”

“When I look at the pictures, I see myself growing into my own skin,” Kate tells Dazed. “When Marie and I first met, I had just moved to New York. I was a mess. I felt so lost and out of place. But it was also the first time I felt fully independent. That independence allowed me to explore and grow, changing my hair, changing my career, changing my relationships, healing this, healing that… It was a lot of trial and error, but it got me here.”

It’s a significant moment of reflection for both of them. The exhibition and book coincide with the release of The World Between Us, Marie Dvořáková’s HBO documentary following Tomanova’s trajectory as an artist and her relationship with art historian and writer, Thomas Beachdel. Tomanova explains, “I had started curating exhibitions at the Czech Centre New York in 2016 as a part of their exhibition series. The last exhibition in this series was my solo show, Young American, in 2018, curated by Thomas Beachdel. And at the time, Marie Dvořáková, a director who had recently won a student Oscar, decided to do a short portrait of me for social media about the Young American show, and it just kept getting longer and longer. She kept filming for six years and decided to create a feature-length documentary at some point.” 

Looking back at her journey documented on-screen has brought up a lot of mixed emotions for Tomanova. While she remembers her abiding sense of uncertainty (“Back in 2017, it didn’t seem at all possible”) and her journal entries from the time which were “filled with the despair of being an undocumented immigrant, saddness that I couldn’t go home and doubting myself as a photographer”, she was also struck by her more untroubled approach to photography. “It surprised me to see myself so eternally happy and curious when walking around with the camera. I think I was more full of wonder five or six years ago, and the film made me realise that I don’t ever want to lose that. My life on the inside nowadays feels a bit more hectic, stressed with deadlines and projects. Sometimes I need to work hard to put the joy and childlike happiness back into this mad run. But I love photography and I love people – and I am so grateful that I can live my life like this. It is important for me to never forget this gratitude in the daily rush of things.”

There’s a perfect symbiosis about the timing of the documentary, the exhibition and the book. Not only does it create a unique opportunity for contemplation on the past seven years, but it also seems to highlight the reciprocal nature of these enmeshed creative relationships between women whose meetings all came about as a result of searching for meaning, for reassurance, and for inspiration. We rarely know when we are on the threshold of a really life-changing encounter with an as-yet unknown individual, or on the cusp of a defining new stage in our lives. “Change is so incremental and when you are in something, you don’t really notice it,” the photographer reflects. “One has to really step away or be apart from something to answer this question.” Back in 2017-18, neither Tomanova nor Dvořáková had any certainty that the work they were making would gather momentum or become career-defining, but, cameras in hand, they each followed their curiosity. And now, mediated through the lens, we can all watch those incremental changes unfold over the years and remind ourselves that new potential stories are beginning around us.

Marie Tomanova’s book Kate, For You (Untitled Publishing) is available to order here now. The New York launch will take place at Dashwood Books on Thursday 12 June, 2025. 

The exhibition Kate, For You takes place at Pražákův palác, Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic and will run from April 18 – 28 Sept, 2025.