Our feeling of belonging is mostly connected to a clearly delineated terrain, whether it be the place where we were born or where we are living now. But what happens to this deep connection to a certain place when its identity keeps being altered throughout history?
This is exactly what Daan Paans has looked into at Velke Slemence, at the southernmost border of Slovakia and since 2006 the southernmost town of the European Union. Before this it belonged to another country, another block of power and the course of history laid the border between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union right through the village. Streets were cut right in half, families were separated and lives took a sudden different course. The coming of the Schengen border, exactly were the former Soviet-border was, did not change a thing for side of the village not belonging to the European Union.
What is the relation of the inhabitants with their past? A series of maps showing the turbulent history of Velke Slemence provided this project with a storyline which Daan used as a guideline for his pictures of the villagers, embodying the past in often moving ways.