ANDREJ BALCO was born on the 25th September 1973 in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Graduated from the faculty of social work at the University of Trnava. In 2006 he obtain Bachelor degree of photography at the Institute of Creative Photography of the Silesian University in Opava. He works as a stuff photographer for TREND, economical weekly magazine in Slovakia. Since 2005 he is the member of Young Photographers United.
More than 2 million Slovaks, which makes up more than one third, live in large block of flats complexes. In the seventies
of the last century the building of the blocks of flats contributed to 97% of overall housing developments. For comparison this was 70% in the Czech republic and 50% in Poland.
This research was focused on analysing and looking at who lives in these buildings. What kind of people, and whether we can consider them a ‘block of flat‘ type of people. While working
on this research I have many times come across an opinion that living in block of flats is characterised by plaster like bathrooms, broken post boxes and grey colour. I was trying to avoid this straight off simplified view. Instead I was trying to point out the colourfulness, variety and vividity of life in the blocks of flats.
© Andrej Balco 2006
www.andrejbalco.com
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