Domésticas by Andrej Balco (June 2, 2010) 
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Introduction by Patricia Gouvea
Photographs feed me. Photographs transport me. Photographs leave a mark on me. Photographs open a gap in ordinary time or transform the ordinary in extraordinary.
This selection of photographic works does not have a master line: they constitute just one part of the images that in some moment aroused emotion in me and for that reason accompany me to these days. These are works from artists as different as their paths, reflections and challenges that each theme provoked, leading them to create methods, concepts and solutions to turn into matter what is born reverie.
Some projects look closer to documentation, like the trance funk Totoma! by Daniela Dacorso. Or the portraits of the domestic workers and their bosses, by the Slovak Andrej Balco (who, after a period of time in Rio, escaped from the cliché poorness – violence, looking at the carioca middle class). Or, still, the Baixo Estácio by the very carioca A.C. Junior, where Samba is more silence than happiness.
Other projects point to gaps and small signs left on the skin of the urban tissue, that talk about love and pain, like the series Love Story, by Leonardo Ramadinha. And to enigmatic landscapes that could only exist in the mind of dreamers like the Argentine photographer Esteban Pastorino that, in the series Kite Aerial Photography, turns into models places photographed from a kite fitted with a handmade camera. How not to be attentive also to the humorous and self-explicative Sobremim (About Me), by Isabela Lira? And to the Mexican Alfredo De Stéfano who, in his series Replenishing Emptiness, makes the desert a territory of the ephemeral, with his experiences of intimacy and relativization of nature?
Make these images yours, take them with you wherever you go, be attentive to the thickness of time that exists in each one of them. A more frenetic time or a more decelerated time, it doesn’t matter. Just stop and observe.
Next / These Pure, Unaffected And Dirty Children / Previous / The Lyrics Make Explicit References To Sex, Drugs And Violence /
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...
The following text is an excerpt of the foreword Lucia Benická, director of the House of Photography in Liptovský Mikuláš, wrote to the book of this project in June 2008.
The portraits of Brazilian domestic servants confront both, master and servant, two environments and two characters, the world of reality and dreams. In many of the photographs it’s as if a dividing line has emerged, separating the two very different lives. A sensitive and deep portrayal of the relations with respect to those being photographed emerged, even though Balco’s sense of humor, exaggeration, and even sarcasm are on display. The portraits impress with their dignity and are at the same time monumental. The selected photographs are connected to stories, acquainting us with two different worlds: the luxury of the middle class and the common Latin-American standard.
Andrej Balco: “From what I read and imagined before my arrival in Rio, I expected to find gigantic differences in the social classes. I anticipated that the social elite would be much more visible and numerous than it really is in Rio. I didn’t expect to find such a strong middle class. I had assumed that the use of domestic staff is common only among the higher social class, and I was surprised to find that nearly everyone I met had at least one person who came at least once a week to put the house in order. Even a servant has his own servant who cares for household life while he serves a wealthy family on the other side of the street. I was also surprised by the friendly relationship between ’masters and servants.’ I had the feeling that there was mutual respect between them and that they valued one another, and that in many cases the ‘servants’ became household advisors, friends and almost full members of the family. I gradually discovered all of this with each new meeting, and it confirmed my opinion that the relationship between these seemingly different worlds is actually symbiotic, and it was just this complementary replenishment and influence that interested me and that I wanted to record.
The human stories in ”Domésticas“ are a sensitive record of the unseen work in private homes. Balco’s creative residence in Brazil in the spring of 2007 was limited by time: for less than two months, with the help of the hosting organization at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Niteroi, he worked on this mature photographic series, which enriches not only contemporary Slovak documentary work but also the international dialogue in the scope of the IPRN.
Andrej Balco (1973) lives and works in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Click weblink andrejbalco.com or browse our archives
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