Photo Journal Monday: Tadas Kazakevičius
Algis and Julius are looking over the process of cutting the hay before the rain starts. Narteikiai, Pasvalys district, Lithuania. © Tadas Kazakevičius
SOON TO BE GONE
As far back as in the 1930s, during the times of the Great Depression in the United States, a group of photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Jack Delano, led by Roy Stryker, head of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), kept restlessly recording views which were soon destined to fade into obscurity. The continuous migration of people moving around in search of easier conditions of life was relentlessly changing the demographical map of the States: homesteads, villages, small towns were disappearing right before the eyes. All this was photographed and put into extensive archives – the effort of those photographers proved not to have been in vain.
“Pretty sure I am the last one in this area to use the horse for haymaking. It is like in the old days. Me, my friends and full carriages of hay all over the fields as far as the eyes can see. I do really miss these sights.”
Tolik and Dainius are photographed working in hayfield in old fashion using a horse to carry it. Jokubonys, Moletai district, Lithuania. © Tadas Kazakevičius
Horse hiding in a bush from hot sun. Baltoji Voke, Vilnius district, Lithuania. © Tadas Kazakevičius
A somehow different (though the outcome is quite similar) process is ongoing in present-day Lithuania too. Neither in the scope nor the conditions of life should those two situations be compared, though something still prompts us to look for similarities.
Just within the last decade, this continuous migration has caused the population of Lithuania to shrink by almost one-sixth. Towns that have usurped the whole economics and are sucking out young people to the cities, inappropriate lifestyle often adopted by the young rural generation – those who are still here – all this is inexorably changing our country. Just one question inevitably arises: for how long will our forests and valleys be adorned by views of homesteads and villages – places where a totally different understanding of time and closeness still exists? For how long will there still be found places, where an unexpected visitor is met like a close relative and every passer-by, is greeted with a heartfelt ‘hello’?
Broken cradle in abandoned house interior. Raseiniai district, Lithuania. © Tadas Kazakevičius
Every time a thought like that crosses my mind, I, as a photographer, am driven by an instinct to hurry and turn those symbols and places into something more than just memories in the stories of future grandparents. Though a recorded image is incapable of reviving what has been lost, it still lets us remember something that perhaps once, while speeding by, momentarily caught our eye at the roadside. Maybe this monument to the Lithuanian countryside will evoke some sentimentality from the viewer and touch those deeply hidden corners in the memory which we, seemingly inadvertently, have closed up, being used to accept what can be gone very quickly.
“I wasn’t event born yet when my father built this house to raise us here. I still remember being kid and watching the beautiful surroundings from our little terrace above the porch. Look now. Factory on one side, abandoned ghost house on other.”
Aldona and Stasys in their home. Stasys is sitting at the table while Aldona is searching of the old photo of their house. Vilijampolé, Kaunas district, Lithuania. © Tadas Kazakevičius
Abandoned house inhabited by outcasts. Panevėžys district, Lithuania. © Tadas Kazakevičius
Stanislav and his son Karolcik resting in their yard. Turgeliai, Šalčininkai district, Lithuania. © Tadas Kazakevičius
