ROMANIA European Central Bank annual photography award 2009

Ufó Zoltán Egyed focuses on the difficult circumstances of the Roma in Romania. In the process, innumerable satellite dishes on the sides of blocks of flats become symbols of the planes of reality between actual situations of gloom and the opportunities for consumption or participation in global media spaces. Thus, the individual satellite dish acts as a symbol for both openness and ghettoisation. It provides a form of media-borne consolation for the questions of everyday life, which are exemplified in the work of Ufó Zoltán Egyed, for instance, by the two children on the water pipe – a graphic question posed to Europe about the fate of people and their future perspectives.