INSIDE

Documentary photography has undergone diverse visual developments since the inception of photography and especially the development of its understanding as art. In the nineteenth century, photographers in documentary photography sought to provide a direct social context, usually capturing themes such as child labour, the lives of street children, the lives of the poorest sections of society, social problems, social inequality, and so on. It was only later, in the second half of the twentieth century, with the advent of the Bressonian aesthetic, that artists sought to perceive documentary photography through the prism of fine art and its movements. Documentary becomes equivalent to fine art in an exhibition entitled Family of Man at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This traveling exhibition has been seen by a record 9 million people over eight years and has featured work by several prominent documentary photographers. Since then, social photography has become popular, exhibited in major galleries around the world and published in artists' books. Just as visual trends in art changed in rapid succession, photographers were influenced by them to perceive reality through the viewfinder of their cameras. Documentary is beginning to layer into many forms. From the traditional social and societal principle to the subjective, personal psychological and expressive, to conceptual starting points and various installations.

We understand the INSIDE project as a penetration into the interior of the photographed with a long-term understanding of their life destinies and emotional moods evoked on their journey through life. Each of us tries to encompass an idea and at the same time to connect our own mental plane, triggered by different aspects, with a specific subject. Documentary photography, as I mentioned earlier, has several visual positions derived from the environment in which it was made. We know the American, Japanese, Nordic and European schools of documentary photography. Each of the artists leans towards one of these visual forms with a strong penetration on their own artistic experience. We have no ambition to polemicise, on the contrary. Our ambition is to show the viewers the hidden world through direct input. We are not about intuitive sensing in the moment, but rather a clearly stated IDEA with a predefined intention. These photographs are not confronting anyone, and there is certainly no need to look for the absurdity of today in them. The personal document is built on mutual recognition, trust and respect. We take photographs only with the full knowledge of consent. In the process of creation, each of us must become a full part of the documented community. Our aim is not to shock, but to suspend the hurried world of the viewer and actively enhance their perception of the unknown world of the photographed beings.

Matúš Zajac, curator