Notstand

NOMINATED: German Photo Book Award 2010

Miklos Boros photographed a woman in her private and professional environment for two years. The result is a portrait of a human being, a single mother of three children and a Go-Go dancer. Born in Hungary, she has lived and worked in Linz, Austria, since 1998. This book shows a selection of pictures that authentically and unpretentiously capture the concrete everyday life of the almost 30-year-old in both contexts.

Boros' attention is focused on certain situations, looks, gestures, details, spaces and constellations. His claim is neither moralising nor commenting. Instead, a narrative quality develops from the documentary approach that begins to occupy the space between the images in particular. It is in this in-between space that the level of effect characterising the overall project "Notstand" emerges, cutting razor-sharp a life situation out of anonymity and a woman out of the status of available object. "Notstand" shows a human being as a subject, at eye level.
"I met Edit about two years ago through acquaintances and was interested in the Hungarian-born woman's life situation from the very beginning. When I suggested that she record her everyday life in a photo series, she was very open and interested.
The pictures were mainly taken in Edit's private environment and at her workplace. For me, the originality of the images and the tangibility of the story were basic points of my work. To build up the necessary level of trust, I had to spend a lot of time at the locations with the people involved. There were even days when I came home without having taken a single picture. I even had to endure the odd threatened brawl from drunken nightclub patrons. In short, Emergency is the ordinary story of an ordinary woman, and through this series of photographs, many a closed door of everyday life is opened." (Miklos Boros)

Miklos Boros, *1976 in Várpalota, Hungary; lives and works in Linz.