Evening School at Nová: Start the Sourdough, Kindle the Fire

15. July 2026

The Evening School, hosted at the Nová Residency House, is a space for informal education. It is a place where we can acquire new knowledge, learn practical skills, and explore what artistic approaches can bring to our everyday lives.

Start the Sourdough, Kindle the Fire is a program dedicated to working with sourdough and baking. Over the course of three sessions, we will feed, knead, shape, score, and bake, while sharing stories connected to flour, dough, and bread. We will learn how to handle bread dough and go through every stage of the baking process, but we will also look for deeper connections and ask ourselves: what can working with sourdough teach us about the contemporary world? What kind of metaphor does a unique community of hundreds of bacteria and yeasts living in a sourdough starter offer for our human society?

The program will be guided by Lenka Kubelová, an artist and researcher who has long focused on the theme of fermentation, teaching people how to ferment and create natural pigments. Her work draws from both her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and her practical experience in the garden. She runs Studio Cibule. 

Program

The sessions are thematically interconnected, but it is also possible to attend individual evenings only.

The Evening School program will take place at the Nová Residency House (Nová 1870, České Budějovice), always from 16:00 to 19:00.

Session 1 – Starting the Sourdough and the Levain

15.07. 2026 • 16:00-19:00

The theme of beginnings and hospitality. What does it mean to welcome someone with bread and salt? What stories do we associate with beginnings, flour, and dough? We will be starting an actual sourdough culture, just as we will be forming our group. We will let it ferment and come alive. We will then learn how to make a simple focaccia from the levain, create edible art on it using herbs and olives, and taste it together.

Session 2 – Kneading

22.07. 2026 • 16:00-19:00

The theme of shaping and exploring models of both human and sourdough communities. We will create ritual bread sculptures, construct installations and constellations, and go through a "theatre of crumbs" process inspired by the Theatre of the Oppressed methodology. We will focus on rituals associated with bread and techniques for group work.

Session 3 – Baking

29.07. 2026 • 16:00-19:00

The theme of fire, time, manifestation, and harvest. We will bake several loaves of bread from our sourdough. We will explore how different parameters affect the baking process and look for that "perfect timing." We will open discussions about ornaments and bread scoring marks, the legacy we wish to leave behind, and celebrating the fruits of our labor.

Accompanying Activities

18.7. Trip to the Bread Festival (Slavnosti chleba) in Lenora (time to be specified)

28.7. Screening of a bread-themed film (title to be specified) (18:00 at the Nová Residency House)

Who is the evening school for?

For participants of all generations. No prior experience with baking or working with sourdough is required.

What will I learn?

We will learn the core principles of how bread dough works and how to handle it. We will go through every stage—from starting, feeding, and maintaining a sourdough culture to kneading a loaf and baking. However, you will also experience extended activities, such as what to do with discard (sourdough surplus), decorative scoring, and creative shaping. By the end of the evening school, you should see bread through completely different eyes and gain the confidence and passion to dive into baking.

How will the evening school work?

The sessions will be based on mutual sharing and enrichment within pre-arranged environments designed to encourage interaction. After all, creating the right conditions and the interaction of simple, individual ingredients is the very essence of making bread dough. Through group work, we will move through the individual stages of bread-making on a symbolic level: starting the sourdough, the levain, kneading, and baking.

The maximum group size is 12 people.

How to sign up?

  • Via the registration form (link HERE)
  • Or by email to ptrdlouhy@gmail.com. Please include the following in your email:
    • Your name + phone number
    • The dates/sessions you would like to attend
    • A few sentences about yourself so we can get to know you a bit better

Accessibility note: is there anything we should take into account to facilitate your participation?

(Optional) You can also share your expectations or describe your motivation for joining. This will help us tailor the individual sessions to your needs.

Who organizes the evening school?

The Evening School is organized by ECoC České Budějovice 2028 as part of the MagiC Carpets project—a European platform that engages the public in artistic processes and strives to strengthen social bonds through art.

Kontakt

Petr Dlouhý (iniciátor Večerní školy za projekt Magic Carpets)

📧ptrdlouhy@gmail.com

📞731 468 447

Anna Davis (koordinátorka projektu)

📧anna.davis@budejovice2028.eu

📞776 146 768