Lucia Nimcová

• THERAPY00:00:15.746
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• It's a pity I won't be here during these dates.00:00:25.112
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• Otherwise I'd go see them.00:00:29.976
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• In 2006 I went to Ukraine00:00:33.670
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• and visited several healers.00:00:37.096
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• I spent most of the time in waiting rooms,00:00:40.596
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• listening people talk. I wanted to hear why they came there.00:00:44.563
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• I often do this kind of observation.00:00:50.266
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• - Did you take any photos? - No.00:00:54.699
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• My photographs always result from a long time00:00:58.199
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• I need to decide if it's possible to take them. Often it's not.00:01:03.434
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• But it doesn't matter.00:01:08.863
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• Why are you in Humenne now?00:01:14.029
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• Well, I was born here.00:01:18.800
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• And when I come to Slovakia, where else could I go?00:01:22.615
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• In Bratislava I would be a stranger like in Amsterdam.00:01:27.792
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• Maybe even more of a stranger than in Amsterdam.00:01:33.292
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• Even though I have many friends in Bratislava00:01:38.292
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• because I used to live there.00:01:43.231
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• Every four or five years I move somewhere else.00:01:47.579
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• It's not planned but it's always been that way.00:01:53.186
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• Time is a very important issue in my work.00:01:57.705
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• One work can take me as long as six years.00:02:02.731
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• I like to explore various approaches to reality.00:02:07.384
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• What is reality, anyway?00:02:11.962
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• We're like a commercial for the Karpatia hotel.00:02:15.712
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• In fact, I took you to Humenne to show you its highlights.00:02:21.582
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• This hotel has a wonderful interior.00:02:28.336
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• I took there one photo for the "Instant Women" project.00:02:32.770
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• Unfortunately, the whole hotel was completely ruined00:02:38.786
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• during the renovation it underwent.00:02:44.341
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• But that often happens to good interiors in Slovakia.00:02:48.341
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• I studied Ukrainian at school and both my parents are Rusyns00:02:55.169
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• so I know the Rusyn language.00:03:01.123
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• What beautiful eyes you have!00:03:04.685
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• Do your works involve animals?00:03:17.316
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• Only recently I realized that many of them do.00:03:20.816
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• Next year I'd like to make a book of photos for children.00:03:25.721
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• I've been taking photos of animals since I was 1400:03:31.478
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• but I've always done it only for fun.00:03:37.368
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• I didn't even know I had so many of them.00:03:41.189
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• One day my niece asked me why I had to travel so much00:03:46.086
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• so I tried to give her an answer.00:03:52.700
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• I worked on it since 2006.00:03:57.201
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• The result is something like a book on my relationship00:04:00.880
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• with Juanita. The working title is "Juanita Diary".00:04:06.922
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• It presents reality as something to which we give a shape.00:04:12.258
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• It's not something that is "given" to us.00:04:17.833
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• Cool, they already have new windows.00:04:22.255
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• This is the place where they sell trees and such.00:04:26.528
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• And the front room was made into a yoga room.00:04:31.493
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• I always look forward to my 2 hours a week spent here.00:04:37.313
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• No, I'd just look at it, it's good to look at.00:04:45.261
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• We like this still life of yours!00:04:53.541
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• Are you going to make wreaths for All Souls' Day with it?00:04:58.480
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• And is that a pot of goulash? Oh, cabbage soup, nice.00:05:03.995
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• The period of normalization in Czechoslovakia.00:05:11.094
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• Normalization, let me say it again.00:05:16.291
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• In general, I'm quite skeptical towards this word00:05:19.939
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• but I made a book about it called "Zvysky" (Leftovers).00:05:25.478
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• It's about my generation, the product of normalization.00:05:31.234
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• Everything was planned for,00:05:36.344
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• young couples would get apartments in housing estates.00:05:39.844
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• All newlyweds were entitled to get one.00:05:45.344
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• The result was a massive baby boom,00:05:50.851
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• during which I was born.00:05:55.351
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• My generation remember communism00:05:58.851
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• but we were still young when it broke down.00:06:02.851
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• I made works called "Unofficial", "Zvysky" and "Double Coding".00:06:07.479
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• "Unofficial", "Leftovers" and "Double Coding".00:06:14.044
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• "Unofficial", as in "official reality".00:06:18.902
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• "Leftovers" concern private lives in the era of normalization.00:06:22.902
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• And "Double Coding" is an analysis of banned movies00:06:29.338
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• shot between 1968 and 1989.00:06:36.659
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• "Double Coding" combines quotes from the movies00:06:43.108
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• and sentences from my diaries written during six months00:06:49.823
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• I spent watching each movie five or six times,00:06:54.870
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• to find out why they were banned and how censorship worked,00:06:59.693
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• why some movies were inappropriate, while others were not.00:07:05.222
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• There's no logical structure, it was all very subjective00:07:10.722
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• and the rules changed over time.00:07:16.222
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• It was interesting to analyze that.00:07:19.722
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• It's a big theme for me - what's objective and what's not,00:07:23.786
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• and whether it's important to see the difference.00:07:29.368
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• Earlier in my life I wanted to be objective00:07:34.367
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• but I grew out of it. In 2006, I think.00:07:39.367
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• That crossing used to be guarded by the police00:07:45.422
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• who stopped cars that wouldn't yield to pedestrians.00:07:51.226
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• It started when the current mayor assumed her function,00:07:56.667
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• although it only lasted for a few days.00:08:02.069
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• She also had those flowers planted.00:08:05.673
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• For me, the project "Unofficial", for instance,00:08:09.996
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• is not a project about Humenne.00:08:13.996
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• It has a wider perspective, and Humenne isn't the main theme.00:08:18.748
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• It's rather about a system running in the whole country.00:08:25.686
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• I just set it here because this is a place I know.00:08:31.223
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• I know the people that are documented00:08:36.191
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• so it's easier for me to make conclusions.00:08:40.414
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• It's always necessary to be familiar with the place.00:08:45.130
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• - Black, strawberry, peppermint... - Black tea, please.00:08:54.260
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• And I'll have a decaf latte.00:08:59.667
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• So, this is a jazz cafe that has never heard jazz.00:09:04.564
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• Text is very important for me.00:09:16.081
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• I've been strongly influenced by literature. I love books.00:09:19.810
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• And I document all my works in the form of text.00:09:26.053
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• Those texts aren't meant for public display,00:09:30.321
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• they just contain notes on my ways of thinking.00:09:36.198
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• I have many notebooks to write down my daily ideas00:09:41.644
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• on my current projects.00:09:46.596
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• I had many activities as a child.00:09:55.725
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• Theater, shooting, basketball, singing, I don't know what else.00:09:59.725
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• I'd just go on a bike from one activity to another,00:10:06.121
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• bringing my parents so many checks to pay.00:10:10.974
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• I really loved the theater club, I went there for 7 years.00:10:15.862
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• I especially liked improvisations.00:10:21.822
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• I'll show you where I used to meet my punker friends.00:10:25.856
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• It was right here.00:10:32.270
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• This is what we used to call "our spot".00:10:35.863
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• It looked different then.00:10:41.037
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• There was this railing where we all used to sit.00:10:44.537
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• Today there's the statue of atefonik.00:10:49.162
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• Look at that pink post, the poor guy!00:10:52.777
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• So we'd sit here, talking about new books00:10:57.488
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• and about what we'd seen, heard or read.00:11:03.193
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• From the age of 14 to 22,00:11:07.991
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• I collaborated on many works with my friends.00:11:12.303
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• We made improvisations, staged portraits and so on.00:11:17.820
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• My parents could tell you about all the people00:11:23.400
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• that I'd bring home.00:11:27.900
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• I love this type of official photographs.00:11:37.530
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• The photographer wants to shoot the crowd00:11:43.825
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• but due to the use of flash00:11:49.466
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• all the attention is concentrated on a single person.00:11:52.966
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• As you can see here, our new mayor00:11:58.551
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• likes to be photographed with elderly people.00:12:02.051
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• It was probably them who voted for her.00:12:07.502
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• Well, these are not so great.00:12:12.139
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• We should try the other notice board,00:12:15.639
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• it usually has the best stuff. This is all new.00:12:19.882
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• But this one isn't bad. Nothing special, though.00:12:25.083
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• Maybe that one's better, down there.00:12:30.045
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• It's as if each mayor had a new board with new photos.00:12:35.345
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• Some people may not even perceive it as photographic art00:12:40.797
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• but I find it very interesting.00:12:46.739
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• These boards are also among my favorite,00:13:10.586
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• maybe even the favorite.00:13:15.964
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• I always look forward to seeing new photos here.00:13:19.490
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• - How often do you come here? - Usually once a month.00:13:24.644
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• Look at that one, for instance.00:13:30.017
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• It's amazing. See those flying plates?00:13:33.616
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• They're hanging in the air. And the photo radiates joy.00:13:38.508
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• Notice the use of flash. And look at the switch.00:13:43.791
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• It brings life to the shot. Wonderful.00:13:48.291
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• Now, let's go close to the red building.00:13:57.799
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• This is some cool background music!00:14:02.299
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• So, this is the Vihorlat Cultural Centre.00:14:09.215
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• I worked here when I was 18.00:14:15.710
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• This is where I learned that my colleague Juraj Kamer00:14:19.270
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• made official documentation of every event in Humenne00:14:26.155
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• and that he had an extensive archive.00:14:32.562
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• Only a few shots from it were used.00:14:36.558
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• I came to take a natural interest in the archive.00:14:41.909
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• It meant studying an archive created on commission.00:14:47.222
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• It was built up every day, for 20 or 30 years.00:14:53.648
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• I could compare the events repeated over those years.00:14:58.354
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• I could even see which mood he was in00:15:04.464
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• or what the weather was like on a particular day.00:15:07.964
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• I saw the people on the photos get older.00:15:12.273
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• It was like time travel.00:15:17.029
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• In the archive I chose a set of errors00:15:21.691
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• in the content that I could find.00:15:25.895
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• For instance, the archive also contained unofficial photos,00:15:30.289
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• made when the photographer needed to finish a film roll.00:15:35.794
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• These photos depicted his friends or other people.00:15:41.618
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• But they were all stored in the official archive, you know.00:15:47.163
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• I studied these small things, traveling in time00:15:53.451
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• with the photographer and feeling his moods.00:15:58.239
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• I made effort to take notice of all that.00:16:03.698
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• With this kind of experience I went to the streets of Humenne00:16:08.697
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• and wanted to take photos of the places and events00:16:14.652
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• that remained the same. Only their names may have changed.00:16:23.206
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• For me it's very easy to take good photographs.00:16:30.222
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• In 2000, a friend told me that to make a good documentary,00:16:35.761
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• you need to take a photo of yourself.00:16:41.394
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• I often remembered that, without seeing what he meant.00:16:45.511
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• After my project "Instant Women",00:16:50.761
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• during which I photographed many events00:16:55.413
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• in Slovakia, Ukraine and elsewhere,00:16:59.586
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• sleeping in the car and using up hundreds of film rolls,00:17:03.529
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• I can say that I know how to take a good photo.00:17:09.891
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• But that's not what I want to do for the rest of my life.00:17:17.091
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• It's not enough for me.00:17:23.753
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• I like to move on.00:17:29.384
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• I enjoy thinking about things that I don't know,00:17:34.258
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• to find why I don't know them and how they work.00:17:39.418
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• I also think a lot about the world of photography,00:17:45.754
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• about how it works, what logic it follows,00:17:51.501
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• what cliches it uses, what recurs and what is outdated.00:17:56.683
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• At the same time,00:18:03.710
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• I can imagine using only text or making only videos.00:18:09.196
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• My use of photography has to be justified by a purpose.00:18:14.712
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• Made by Erik Sikora00:18:31.261

one comment for “Lucia Nimcová”

1. 2046 says on25. Feb. 2012:
   

   man this is so awesome :) I was almost crying, really touchy made!

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