This presentation is part of our “Looking Back to the Future” project, aiming to provide a bird’s eye view on cultural initiatives, texts, publications and exhibitions over the last three decades that have contributed in defining Romanian photographic expression.
The material below is part of a series of photographic projects published over time in the publications edited by the VECTOR Association, from which a selection was made and presented as a de-archiving on the Romanian Contemporary Photography INFLUX platform.
Work and text pertaining to
Florin Bobu’s “Mitică, Leancă’s Son”
originally published in
Vector – art and culture in context
no.3, 2006, Iași, Romania
Mitică Lefter or "Mitică a lu’ Leanca" ("Mitică, Leanca’s son"), as he is known in his village, is the author of this series of photographs. Between 1989 and 1998 he has worked as a photographer in the village of Corod, Galați county. Mitică’s archive consists of approximately 600 photographs for personal identification documents. The archive also holds photographs from weddings, funerals and baptisms.
They are simple pictures, functioning as personal identity photographs for the Romanian authorities. They were copied in sizes that allowed Mitică to clip them later and distribute them to the people he worked with. He used to charge a small fee, to cover the cost of the photographs. He would be left with just a few pennies. Mitică does not appreciate his work as a photographer.
They are simple pictures, functioning as personal identity photographs for the Romanian authorities. They were copied in sizes that allowed Mitică to clip them later and distribute them to the people he worked with. He used to charge a small fee, to cover the cost of the photographs. He would be left with just a few pennies. Mitică does not appreciate his work as a photographer.
What he used to trim out in the past has become valuable today. Mitică’s life, as it’s revealed from what he thought was lacking and had to be cut out, appears before us as a simple life: a few posed snapshots, a stove, a wife, a child, a second child, a picture from the Army service, a light switch, a window and a curtain.
We can see nothing else, and so we can conclude that nothing else existed. However, what we see seems to be enough. We don’t need to see more than a cat or a doll to realize that Mitică’s life is worth remembering. Because, in the end, this is what it’s all about.
We can see nothing else, and so we can conclude that nothing else existed. However, what we see seems to be enough. We don’t need to see more than a cat or a doll to realize that Mitică’s life is worth remembering. Because, in the end, this is what it’s all about.
n recent years, Mitică stopped taking photographs. Analog photo-based identity documents have been replaced by digital photo-based identity cards, their glossy surface features photographs taken by professionals. Mitică is now into something else. He got himself a computer and started copying music and movies for the youth of the village.
text by Florin Bobu
Romanian Contemporary Photography INFLUX – Looking Back to the Future
The “Looking Back to the Future” project aims to provides a bird’s eye view on the use of photography in the Romanian art scene spanning across the last three decades (and beyond). By showcasing texts, publications and exhibitions of relevancy in the this (not so) recent history, we can outline the development of this medium, highlighting the major transformations and trends that have defined the Romanian photographic expression.
This project was co-funded by the National Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN). It does not necessarily represent the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration and AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or for how the project results may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding beneficiary.
