Hermanovce

Gypsies is a term bandied about like the vampire bat, conjuring images of mystery, danger, repulsion, derision and disgust. Some call them tinkers, travelers or even outcasts. They are all wrong. Their name is the Roma, a tribe that emanated from India and that brought to Europe a culture infinitely alien to the people who lived there. Jarret Schecter sought to define their traditions, concentrating on the gypsy settlement of Hermanovce in Eastern Slovakia over four seasons. Rather than a voyage of love or romance, Schecter's work is related to a singular dedication to a truth, and the reality of that truth. Jarret Schecter's first book, Our World in Focus, was launched at the World Conference on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August, 2002. Once again, Trolley books has published several commendable books of social concern. The pitfalls in this type of work are numerous-one must avoid a patronizing voice and the curiosity factor while producing imagery that is compelling as well as informative. Each of the photographers here do just that, supported by brilliant book design. Ghetto was conceived by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, the editors and photographers of COLORS magazine. They take the viewer through 12 modern ghettos, starting in a refugee camp in Tanzania and ending in a forest in Patagonia. In Hermanovce, Jarret Schecter tenderly and unpretentiously documents the lives of a village of Roma (Gypsies) in Slovakia. The Roma have been marginalized for hundreds of years, and the millions that inhabit Europe continue to face wide-ranging prejudice. Open Wound, the last title (not shown) explores the photographs of Stanley Greene of the catastrophic war in Chechnya. The work is riveting, painful, and replete with the cry for change.