honorable mention
Sylvia de Swaan united states
title
Travels in Romania
These pictures were taken on two separate trips. In 1994 I spent six weeks between Bucharest, Cluj and Timisoara and in 1996 I spent seven weeks in Bucharest, Timisoara, Iasi and Arad with an arduous side trip across the border to Ukraine and the city of my birth. Since then travel restriction have been lifted between Ukraine and other countries, so that I have been able to spend considerable time there as well.
1- Piata Uniri, Cluj-Napoca 1994
2- Bus, Cluj-Napoca 1994
3- Girl at the wedding party, Cluj Napoca 1994
4- Street scene, Bucharest 1994
5- Church, Timisoara 1996
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entry description
These photographs are indirectly part of my "Return" series, a long-term quest to find my roots in post communist Eastern Europe. According to my birth certificate Romania is my native country. But because of shifting borders in the region, the northern part of Romania where I was born was ceded to the Soviet Union in 1947 and became of Ukraine in 1991. It took quite a while for me to adjust to the idea that my native city was now in Ukraine - because in Romania I felt a visceral connection by birth and cultural affinity. In the 1960s and '70s I lived 11 years in Mexico City, a Latin country with cultural similarities to Romania and speak Spanish, a romance language, that facilitates my understanding of Romanian.These pictures were taken on two separate trips. In 1994 I spent six weeks between Bucharest, Cluj and Timisoara and in 1996 I spent seven weeks in Bucharest, Timisoara, Iasi and Arad with an arduous side trip across the border to Ukraine and the city of my birth. Since then travel restriction have been lifted between Ukraine and other countries, so that I have been able to spend considerable time there as well.
1- Piata Uniri, Cluj-Napoca 1994
2- Bus, Cluj-Napoca 1994
3- Girl at the wedding party, Cluj Napoca 1994
4- Street scene, Bucharest 1994
5- Church, Timisoara 1996
about the photographer
I'm an art and documentary photographer who works on long term personal projects about identity, memory, personal history, displacement and war. I travel frequently to Eastern Europe and Mexico exploring a terrain in earlier stages of my life. My work has been awarded grants, fellowships and prizes from Art Matters, Inc., Aaron Siskind Foundation, Light Work, Arts Link, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Austrian Ministry of Culture, New York Foundation for the Arts, the Society for Photographic Education and Px3, among others. My photographs have been exhibited and published nationally and internationally.back to gallery