Fernweh in Bratislava

Fernweh is a German word describing a deep desire to travel or a longing for far-off places and a different way of life. But rather than just a craving to be on the road and see the world, it’s an actual pain, a feeling of physical or mental suffering many of us have experienced in the past 12 months. It was my passion for travelling that sparked my beautiful relationship with photography. Before Covid-19, I used to photograph mainly when travelling abroad. Naturally, this has changed dramatically in 2020. As a Central European, I grew up in an ethnically diverse region where you can easily cross four different countries within an hour. Borders are everywhere. When I was born in 1985, crossing some of them was an act that seemed impossible for many of us living behind the Iron Curtain. Luckily, physical borders disappeared more than 30 years ago. The global pandemic however changed it all once again and in March 2020, same as most nations in the world, we found ourselves trapped behind those invisible borders. I became an unhappy prisoner, later transformed into a tourist in my own hometown and an enthusiastic explorer seeing my city with fresh new eyes. Instead of exploring remote places, I developed a new routine. Almost every day, I would cross the Old Bridge ("Starý Most") over the Danube river in Bratislava that is in fact the town’s newest bridge completely rebuilt in 2015. Then I would walk on the right bank of the river and return to the city centre by getting across the SNP Bridge (former "New Bridge” replaced by a number of newer bridges), commonly referred to as the UFO Bridge due to the shape of its observation deck. I would wander around the city with a camera in my hands never getting enough of those spectacular views. The bridges connecting the two banks of Danube started playing a decisive role in many of my images. Ever-present brutalist buildings from the communist era, city’s rich industrial heritage, dreamy “Ostalgie” in the air and the ever-changing skyline dominated by contemporary towers have become visual fundaments in my photo work. Over the months, I’ve come to realise those are actually the motifs I always intuitively searched for when photographing in the streets of foreign cities. In early 2021, Slovakia became the country with most Covid-related deaths by size of the population in the world. Tough lockdowns, closed borders, social isolation and personal tragedies have affected us all. In our present life in quarantine, we all wish a quick return to our past pre-pandemic life. I don’t how how will my post-pandemic life look like but I know my photo work will undoubtedly remain influenced by the atmosphere of Bratislava. And I truly hope to feel Heimweh once again.