A Sense Of Direction | MichaelaNagyidaiova

A Sense

of Direction

- Ongoing -

Photographed in Czech Republic, 2019

Second part of the story can be found here

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Examining a deep connection between an individual and a specific landscape, this project looks at displacements, concealed family secrets, memory, migration and roots.

A Sense of Direction addresses the displacements happening throughout the Greek Civil War. Thousands of children from the country were placed into former communist/socialist states such as former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Eastern Germany, Poland or Romania. No one had the knowledge of when or if these civil war refugees would be repatriated back to their homeland.

My family originating from northern Greece was impacted by the civil war, as my grandmother was one of the children sent to former Czechoslovakia in 1948 by the communist troops operating under the Greek Communist Party.

This work is based on a collaboration between my grandmother and myself, where we explored one of four children homes, in which she used to live as a Greek Civil War refugee.

Delving into her memories of the time, when she used to live in the children’s home, the work examines her current connection to the location and the way it shaped her identity whilst growing up there. We travelled to the location of the children’s home and began to re-discover it together. The site belonged to a noble family line until 1945, when it was confiscated and nationalised by the government. What used to be an old manor used specifically for the purpose of housing over hundred or so children is now a large empty space and a research centre for a Czech university.