cover photo of Lenka Lukacovicova's exhibition

LENKA L. LUKAČOVIČOVÁ – LONELY PLANET TRNÁVKA

April 2023

Lenka L. Lukačovičová‘s place is Trnávka, a city part of Bratislava. Until recently, it had a reputation as a wild periphery, and as an uncontrolled island, which once resisted socialization, another time the capitalization of the city. It was photographed by the avant-garde Jaromír Funke in the 1920s as “bad living” and there is even a unique publication, a documentary about life in work- ers‘ colonies, by amateur photographer and journalist Iľja Jozef Marek: Dornkappel. Suburb of Three Languages (1938). Since the photographer lives here with her family, she is not discovering it as an exotic periphery, but as a place of her own, where she lives her everyday life. She photographs it, almost with obsessive regularity, maybe even every day, when taking her daughter to the kindergarten, or on her way to the store, or just like that, when she wanders the streets and nooks. As she said: “I think about a moment that is common, recurring, even banal and at the same time (un)seen by others, when I return to the work itself and the photographs, I often wonder if these (non)decisive moments should be presented to the public in an exhibition.” Her conscious play with banality of various kinds carries several levels – from building on uncertainty and riddles to situational irony. She tried out many of the set principles in the Instagram authorial project Lonely Planet Trnávka (2020 – 2022), where in an ironic reference to the once popular travel bedekers, Trnávka offers places. Some of the photos from Instagram, she regularly exhibits in the pub- lic showcase of the former local cinema Zora, where they used to „pin“ announcements and information. It puts two formats of public sharing side by side: social networks versus presentation in a forgotten showcase. (Text: Beata Jablonská) 
www.lenkalukacovicova.sk