Martin Tharp

Martin Tharp is a researcher, sociologist, activist, architectural translator, and participant-observer of Europe’s post-totalitarian regions since the 1990s. In recent years, he has been active in several spatial justice initiatives in Prague and beyond. His research, presented in the forthcoming book Paper Agora: The Samizdat Periodical Vokno, the Czech Provincial Underground and Questions of a Counterculture under State Socialism (Karolinum, 2025), has examined unofficial and illegal cultural activity in pre-1989 Czechoslovakia, with a critical perspective toward its lessons and warnings for activism today. Currently, he is working on a large-scale geographic and sociohistorical examination of Czech border regions.

Tharp holds a PhD in historical sociology from the Faculty of Humanistic Studies at Charles University in Prague. He collaborates with the VI PER Gallery in Prague and is a coordinator of the recently launched website ConcreteEye, a forum for spatial-environmental scholarship and activism in Eastern and Central Europe.