Katalina Simon
The Land Beyond the Forest
January-February Online Exhibition
These photos are taken from my two-year project titled “The Land Beyond the Forest,” an exploration of a disappearing agrarian lifestyle in rural Transylvania (Romania).
The series seeks to capture the dignity, the joy and the strong ties that bind people and families into these remote communities. My connection to this region and its people is deeply personal. My parents fled Hungary for Britain during the 1956 revolution against the Soviet-backed government.
During my childhood visits back to Hungary, visas were never a sure thing, so we treated each visit as if it could be our last. I used my camera to capture all that I could each time I saw my grandparents. This started both my life in photography and my lifelong awareness of the strong yet fragile nature of families, communities, and cultures. For this project, I chose the Carpathian Mountains region of Transylvania because it closely captures the Hungary of my youth.
Today, I remain inspired by the people – now my friends – and their traditions that are being inexorably changed by geopolitics, globalism and "progress." – Katalina Simon
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