"On the Periphery”
Inspired by João Biehl’s Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment, I document the lives of Romani residents in one of Slovakia’s “socially excluded” communities, challenging narratives that obscure or pathologize them. My work seeks to reveal the creativity and persistence that shape everyday life in contexts often marked by abandonment.
Pamelka, the dancer in this video, is ten years old, though her exact birthdate is unknown. She lives with nine siblings and her parents, in a home where communication takes many forms, as her mother and several siblings are deaf.
A few times each week, she and her siblings walk ten kilometres to Prešov, where they ask for money to buy medicine, food, and — if they are lucky — a bus ticket for the journey back home. When I asked what she would want for Christmas, she replied: “good shoes and fake nails.”
