The LUSTR Festival is the largest international exhibition of illustration and comics in the Czech Republic and a unique opportunity to see the best and freshest of contemporary illustration in one place. This year, the 13th edition will take place at the Holešovice Market in Prague.

LUSTR is not just pictures on the wall, but a variety of installations by more than a hundred selected artists, personal encounters, and topics that are shaping society. The festival also features a rich accompanying program, including a series of workshops and lectures designed for professionals, the general public, and families with children.

This year’s main exhibition is titled Landscape 2.0 and focuses on the human impact on our environment: the intertwining of nature and culture, landscapes heavily shaped by humans, and new, unexpectedly emerging biotopes, such as steppe communities on overgrown piles of mined tailings or a sprouting forest at the bottom of a Ukrainian reservoir breached during bombing. It features drawings made directly in the field, memory maps of interesting places, and post-apocalyptic comics speculating on the landscapes of the future.

Next is the Showcase exhibition, for which exhibitors from around the world apply via an open call and which once again saw record interest this year.

Once again this year, the national exhibition Salónek focuses on one specific local scene—this time, Portugal.

There will also be a showcase of works created as part of the Broumov Illustration Symposium, and the youngest visitors can look forward to the Children’s Corner by TOTEMO.

In addition to the exhibition program at the Holešovice Market, several standalone exhibitions are also planned this year at other locations throughout Prague.

At the Chemistry Gallery, you’ll find an all-female exhibition titled Mamma mia?, which premiered this past April in Bologna, Italy.

The second exhibition outside the festival’s main venue is hosted by the Hvězda Summer Palace. It is titled Travel Diaries, Maps, and Guides: Illustration on the Road from the Renaissance to the Present and showcases treasures unearthed from the archives of the National Library alongside contemporary illustration and comic art: from travel sketchbooks to illustrated atlases, large-format prints of port cities, and maps of imaginary settings for comic book stories.