Film-Maker's Photo Project Focuses On Helping Gypsy Youths
17 January 2013
A still from Artur Conka's film showing the lives of people living in the Lunik IX housing blocks in Slovakia.
Artur Conka.
Artur Conka, graduating tomorrow (January 18) from the University of Derby, has established a project to help young gypsy and Roma people in Slovakia.
A University of Derby graduate film-maker is training Roma gypsy children to photograph their difficult lives in a mass housing complex in Slovakia - where he also lived as a child.
Artur Conka, 22 - who graduates with a BA (Hons) Photography degree at the University's Derby Award Ceremonies tomorrow (Friday January 18) - made a short film about Roma and gypsy peoples living in the vast, crumbling Lunik IX housing complex in Kosice, Slovakia, for his final degree show. The film can be seen on YouTube (at www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUFUkVivh_M) and has been screened at film festivals.
A former Lunik IX resident himself - Artur lived there until aged three, when his parents left Slovakia and eventually settled in London when he was eight-years-old - his film perfectly captures the crumbling tower blocks surrounded by rubbish, and limited running water and power supplies. Communities are mainly settled there by the Slovakian government.
Now Artur has launched a project to raise international awareness of the Lunik IX conditions and teach the young people living there valuable photographic skills. It will work in conjunction with a similar project, called 'Life Through A Lens', founded by fellow film-maker Julia Johnson, which helps gypsy youths in England.
He said: "I have returned to the Lunik IX complex a number of times, not least because I still have family living there, and am always struck by the dire conditions that people live with.
"My colleague, Julia Johnson, and I have launched a collaborative project to help young people at Lunik IX, Slovakia. We will teach them to take photographs, while I continue filming their daily lives, with all our work then being shown at a London exhibition planned for 2013, to create interest in and financial support for the children of Lunik IX.
"I hope the images these Roma youths produce themselves will challenge the negative representations of them and their culture."
To find out more about the Lunik IX and 'Life Through A Lens' initiatives see website www.sponsume.com/project/my-gypsy-culture
To make a donation go to link: www.jcjphotographer.com/page9.htm
For further press information please contact Sean Kirby, University of Derby Press and PR Officer, on 01332 591891 or email: s.kirby@derby.ac.uk
