Dobra Voda (from series)
Nowadays, the time rushes past us more quickly,
characterised by more intense and flashy stimuli,
attacking our sense, and suppressing the images so
common for previous generations. We seem to
abandon the understanding of who we used to be
and how we used to live. Fortunately, there still are
the last places where the flow of time is slower and
allows us to capture our heritage, its fading or
transformation. Experience the sensitive approach
applied by Miro Miklas in his series of documentary
photographs with social themes, meant to capture
the images of quickly and irretrievably vanishing
Slovak villages. The photographer invested a lot of
time to relations with the locals and is able to gently
and naturally find his way to the inhabitants of a
small half-forgotten Carpathian village called Dobrá
Voda. To document their changing work, leisure time
activities and traditional rituals. Miro saves a
precious heritage which can clarify to our successors
and us where our roots are, how it used to be and
how we used to live. The photographs are not
fragmented depictions of the old world deprived of
the context. They rather show the reality, the real
symbiosis of the old and the new, of several
generations, the transformation brought by eras,
taken from the life in the half-forgotten remote village
Dobrá Voda in the heart of the Little Carpathian
Mountains. Changes have already found their way to
the rural settings. Current Slovak villages are more
anonymous and characterised by more individualism
than before, fragmented to fenced gardens with
artificial irrigation systems. The old village life may
become a mere memory in few years time. We
cannot stop the progress; however, we are able to
capture the changes for a better understanding of
our roots. For us and the future generations.
(Dobra Voda)