Private Story
Diana Takacsova
I am a photographer and visual storyteller whose work focuses mainly on questions of identity, physical and emotional connection to place, migration, and the human relationship to nature and environment. In my work, I strive to bridge various ways of storytelling and to move beyond linearity. I seek smaller stories that tell more about the whole, investigating the daily life of different groups and communities and the impacts on them. I grew up in the Hungarian minority in Slovakia - but feel home in motion.
I am currently in the phase of broadening my focus and telling more stories for a social change. Thanks to my professional background in working with democracy support which enabled me to meet countless inspiring individuals, I fully realised the importance and power of telling stories that impact us all. As a recipient of the prestigious Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, I am now back to academia, finding my passion for interdisciplinary research renewed in the field of social sciences which provides me with a lot of freedom and plenty of food for thought. I hope to valorize this in my photographic work both during and after my studies. I am passionate about ethics of representation and power, consent and obligations in photography, among other topics.
I see joining Native Agency as an extraordinary opportunity to broaden my horizons, (re)discover, learn, be part of a real community, discuss and network - and a combination of these aspects forms my motivation to apply. I feel like this is the right time to submit my application as I seek new ways to develop my visual language - and work in a sensitive, impactful way. Throughout the past years, I came to ask myself, what is the role of the photographer as a professional, a member of the community, a responsible human being? What role can art/ photography play in relation to the events and processes happening in the world? My time on Lesbos, Greece reassured me that I want to use my tools in a - for me - meaningful way: my photography project about the situation of Kenya's Ogiek community is underway - and I am planning working on a project about migrants working in the agricultural sector in Portugal. It would be a honour to grow with the amazing Native community.
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