A personal project · part one shown at Beseder Gallery, Prague 2026
The Human
Hand —
from bone
to motion
Drawing detail · pencil on paper
A physiotherapist spends a year and a half drawing the anatomy of the hand. This is not a contradiction — it is the same thing.
The hand is the most complex tool a human being possesses — and the one we understand least. It can pinch, grip, shout and be tender. Right now, as you read this, your fingers are holding a phone or a mouse — and you are doing it without thinking.
This exhibition grew from a need to understand movement so deeply that words were no longer enough. The drawings are a visualisation of Spiraldynamik® principles — and a personal map of fascination with what we are: humans with hands.
The drawings are not the destination. They are the window.
Every movement — from a step to lifting a glass — happens in spirals, chains, mutually linked rotations. Spiraldynamik® is a method that names this principle and teaches us to work with it consciously.
It was developed by Swiss physician Christian Larsen and French physiotherapist Yolande Deswarte in the 1990s. It is not an exercise system or therapy in the narrow sense — it is a language of movement. A description of how bones, joints and muscles cooperate when we let them.
For a physiotherapist, it is a map. For a patient, a guide. For me — when drawing the upper limb — it was a way of seeing the hand from the inside.
An industrial hall in Libeň, Prague. Concrete, acoustic panels, daylight from three east-facing windows. Two pianos against the wall.
This is not a white cube. It is a space with bones — pillars, beams, edges. Fitting for an exhibition about how the body is built.
Saturday 4 July 2026 · opening, free admission
Sunday 5 July 2026 · workshop in Czech
Monday 6 July 2026 · workshop in English
Part one of the series.
All ten drawings, with the captions that hung beside them in the gallery, remain in the online catalogue. The originals are in the studio — and are looking for their next space.
The exhibition, together with its accompanying workshop, can be held elsewhere — in a gallery, at a conference or a school. If you'd like to host it, write to ajurfyzio@ajurfyzio.cz.
If a motif speaks to you and you'd like your own drawing — for yourself, your practice, or as a gift — we can arrange a custom commission.
Get in touch →The exhibition was the beginning. The workshop was the continuation — this time with your own body. In three hours we went through what the drawings show on paper. It ran twice: in Czech on Sunday, in English on Monday, fifteen people each time.
The workshop was open to everyone — no prior knowledge of movement methods or physiotherapy required. No new date is scheduled yet.
The next date will come with the second exhibition — this time on the torso. Leave me your e-mail and you'll be the first to hear about the exhibition and the workshop. No payment, no commitment.
Notify me about the next date
Jan Vančura is a physiotherapist. He works with the body — with how it moves, where it gets stuck and why.
A year and a half ago he picked up a pencil to understand something that words could not explain. He needed to see how the shoulder joint works when the arm is raised, what exactly the scapula does, how the forearm rotates around its own axis. He started drawing.
A personal study tool became a series of drawings. The drawings became an exhibition.
It is not about a physiotherapist painting — it is about drawing and physiotherapy being the same thing for him: an effort to understand movement so deeply that it becomes visible.
Jan practices in Prague. Consultations can be arranged at ajurfyzio.cz.
What the drawings show is what I do every day in practice — finding where movement got stuck, and why. Usually it is not where it hurts. Consultations in Prague, Jeseniova 139.
Book a consultation →Three days, ten drawings, two workshops. The opening began at five; the last people left after nine. I walked people through the show drawing by drawing and found that most questions were not about how I drew it, but about why their own shoulder sits where it does.
Thank you to the Beseder Gallery, to everyone who came, and to those who lay down on a mat the next day and tried it with their own body. The drawings were not the destination. They were a window — and someone looked through.
Beseder Gallery, Prague · 4–6 July 2026
No commitment · no payment · I will write once a date is set
As soon as I schedule the next workshop, you will be among the first to hear. Nothing to pay, nothing to commit to.
In the meantime, browse the catalogue of drawings — each carries the caption that hung in the gallery.
