UNOFFICIAL by Lucia Nimcova (August 20, 2009) 
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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curator statement - on Lucia Nimcova
Lucia is documenting the transformation of societies in Eastern Europe since 2000, in its whole complexity. From the presence she naturally came to history - somehow never ending. She has studied thousands of negatives from official documentation of events that happened in Eastern Slovakia in the eighties. After appropriating the visual language of the archive she went to same places and documented the same people almost thirty years later. The names of events have changed, but the locations and characters remained the same. Lucia is using the same indifferent language that Juraj Kammer (the official photographer of the Regional Cultural Centre [under communist rule, ed.]) did, while showing officials and local heroes, who somehow always miss something to be real heroes - to be ideal. Roman Babjak is the curator and editor of photo.sittcom.sk, a web based project aimed at discovering and presenting young artists from Central and Eastern Europe working with video & photography.
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Our poll "A photo essay always needs a great written story" closed. 267 people voted, 28% agrees, 72% disagrees. 233 people answered our follow-up question "Are you a photographer?" 82% indicated they are, 18% said no. Initially, negative answers to question #1 were almost 100% as was the pecentage of photographers among respondants. Then, when the level of non-photographers started to rise, the percentage of people indicating good text is always essential started to rise too. This seems to indicate that non-photographers think that adding good text to your photo essays is essential. In my opinion: if you want non-photographers to dig your work, you know what to do...
For some time now, I work on the digitalization of the official documents of various official institutions of my town.
I came accross a lot of interesting photo material. The town has a rich photographic tradition, its community of photographers is easily one of the most distinct in the history of Slovak photography of the seventies and eighties.
I have touched thousands of documents on places and people I know personally. I could lay down a mosaic of human lifes spent in our town, the interconnecteness of it would be complex beyond understanding.
How does our history influence our future? Closing our eyes to our history, is like deciding not to grow up. I decided to research both official and family archives in my home town.
Researching one place deeply enough, exploring various perspectives and views, and during a longer period of time, will help me understand the transformation of Eastern European societies, from communism into the current day situation. Hours spent scanning these documents has changed my perspective and understanding.
They have also changed my visual language. I felt lost in time when I saw that so many places were unaffected, even with many of the former actors still in place.
Time, it seemed, had stood still. So I returned to some of the places documented in the past and photographed the tableaus I have seen before my mind's eye since my childhood. They are still there.
Lucia Nimcova (1977) lives and works in Amsterdam (Netherlands)/Berlin (Germany).
Click weblink luco.sk or browse our archives
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