NEWS | 24. 2. 2016

Once thesis at the Institute of Creative Photography at the Silesian University in Opava forced Lena Jakubčáková assemble a collection of photos The hag from the forest. Photographs on display in the café Amadeus in Olomouc Archdiocesan Museum are from the 2014, but The hag from the forest (as supposedly her godmother presents itself) also Lena Jakubčáková since his adolescence, about twenty years. 

“My grandfather was friends with her, as one of the few people understood her and not laugh with her, even though such strange. When the dam flooded due to her village, she moved to the woods, where she built a house. Since childhood we had a cottage close and parents treated her beasts,” explained Jakubčáková.

Patron of the exhibition Jindrich Štreit highlighted in the photographs, some of which are exhibited for the first time, its attention to detail and display old age. “Its them feel a connection with nature and with God. These pictures do not degrade the relationship between photographer and photographed, but rather strengthen it. Lena was not there as a mere voyeur,“ said at the opening Štreit.

Jakubčáková characterized hag from the forest only as a loner. “Its a special person who has problems with communication, has a rough voice and can not speak too behave, what she says and what she thinks, but it is extremely stable. For me its a woman with a capital W. Once when she leave, will disappear with her a piece of this world, which I find,“ she said.

Lena Jakubčáková is the second time at the Café Amadeus. Her first issue were photographs from the prison. Connection with the shooting at the prison, where people are not alone, but also not free, while hag from the forest is free, but itself, characterize the author of her current position of the striking teachers, as is an assistant in the Photography Studio at the Faculty of Arts in Košice. „Freedom is a broad term to be behind bars for me does not actually lose their freedom. Physically, deprivation of liberty is unpleasant, but spiritually for me is far worse to be free, but not have the freedom to be afraid to express their opinion and be afraid to fight for something good,“ said Jakubčáková.

Both exhibitions would now like to prepare and issue a book. Jakubčáková according to exhibition curator Štěpánka Bieleszová is also one of three authors who will represent the Institute of Creative Photography at the festival Circulation(s) in Paris.

The hag from the forest is in the cafe Olomouc Archdiocesan Museum on display until April 24.