Vladimir's Travel journal

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Bulgaria | Saturday, October 16, 2010 | 4 photos

Accused of having no artistic value and of being unaesthetic, they make the city look ugly rather than cosy and welcome. The socialist monuments are big, concrete and stick out as alien in the landscape – seen from every corner of a city. They are called repulsive, menacing, smothering and frightening … “a (monu) mental foolishness”. They are a symbol of a passed age and they fully fit in the sought after image – strong and massive, seemingly indestructible.
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall and the change of the political administrations in the now former socialist countries, young people can learn about the values of the socialist culture and way of life from rather scant resources. The people who “lived” the regime do not want to write about the period and the young people, who are born after the change and who are not burdened with memories and subjective attitude towards the period/regime are just too young to research and gather impressions from the topic. The monuments of socialism are a source of information for the period before 1989; the attitude of the current government, parents and coevals towards the monuments is another source for information that plays a great part in the forming of the young people’s opinion and attitude towards the monuments.
I am 19 years old and I would like through photography and words to reflect the attitude of my parents and coevals towards social problems, which interest people from all around the world, people around me, as well as myself. I am a Social Psychology student and I would like very much the chance to better myself – to find indicators of social problems and document them.
I see a big opportunity for myself in this scholarship in Bhutan, and I highly value the opportunity to learn with a mentor, to whom I could talk about how to better my technique, my view point and attention to detail.