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Since yesterday, visitors to the Fiducia Gallery have had the opportunity to view an exhibition featuring a book about Ostrava's industrial heritage, which was just published in Germany. The authors of the book, titled Black Star, are the German photographers Kim Bouvy, Kai-Olaf Hesse (who is also the editor of the book), Berd Langmack (his photographs of the Ruhr-Area in Germany illustrate an essay in the book which compares the industrial Ruhr Area with no less industrial Ostrava), Andreas Mader, Arwed Messmer and Christian Steffelin. The 14 July vernissage was attended by two of the photographers, Hesse and Mader, and also Gregor Schrör, who worked on publishing the book. Representing the Fiducia Gallery were Martin Popelář and Roman Polášek, who both cooperate closely with the Ostrava 2015 project. Among the Czech co-authors of the book, the architectural historian Martin Strakoš was present. The evening was accompanied by audio essays by Strakoš and Jan Balabán, which are part of the publication and which were pre-read and recorded for the purpose of the vernissage by Marek Cisovský and Josef Kaluža, who are actors from the Aréna Chamber Theatre. At the conclusion of the vernissage, the industrial band Sklo performed.

In his speech for the vernissage, Strakoš explained the genesis of the publication. He spoke about the circumstances that led the German photographers to choose post-industrial Ostrava as the focus of their artistic interest, to capture it through the viewfinders of their cameras, and finally to publish a book of the collected photographs. Bouvy, Hesse and others travelled to Ostrava over six years. The first two years, they came at the invitation of the civic organization For Historical Ostrava, and in subsequent years they came on their own initiative. As they themselves said, they were captivated by the particularity of Ostrava that appears to visitors from outside the city.

The photographs that originated from their trips to Ostrava constitute the heart of the book. Even though they don't portray what on first view could be called pretty or attractive, they breathe with Ostrava genius loci. As Strakoš noted, the publication is a kind of "report about the city". The rich photographic material in the book is supplemented with texts and also historical photographs of Ostrava, mainly from the first half of the twentieth century. The book was published in German with Czech translation.