Fotograf Magazine

Social video documentary makes up a significant portion of the work of the Slovak media artist Pavlína Fichta Čierna. A graduate of The Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and now a teacher at the University of Žilina, she shot a series of portraits of people from her surroundings between 2002 and 2005. Dating from a time when the artist felt isolated from the outside world, these films are linked by the theme of social exclusion. The heroes are people with handicaps, be it mental disability, poverty, a dependence on alcohol, or belonging to a minority. Majority society rejects them because of their otherness, which it perceives as a mistake. Čierna, however, is fascinated by their difference as an expression of uniqueness.