A few months ago bob was invited to Slovakia to put on an exhibition in a bus station! The idea came from a member of the bob community who had already done some really cool stuff for the project: a link up with Maximus beats, spreading the word of bob on his blog and of course amazing photos! So we were excited to see what he had in mind, so much so that we decided to see for ourselves. Having shipped half of the contents of our studio to slovakia we promplty sent ourselves! (ryan air was as close to envelope travel as we could get!)
On arrival at the Bratislava airport we were squeezed onto a bus meaning that within 30 seconds of being in slovakia I had already hugged a Slovakian man and sat on a slovakian lady! Luckily the bus journey only lasted another 30 seconds taking us only about 8 meters closer to the terminal, strange...We came out of the arrivals gate and amongst the taxi drivers holding name boards was one man grinning widely and waving a bob, Julo! After a quick drive through Bratislava we arrived at Zuzanas' huge flat for a dinner party. At this point I was already getting the feeling that our hosts were a lot more organised than we were! The food was amazing and we spent some time swapping hugely sweeping generalisations about our respective countries. As a slightly drunk self appointed ambassador of the UK I feel I concisely summed up the whole country fairly well! Next on the bill was an amazing band and we were all given wine bottles with beans in them; as I struggled to grasp this strange local delicacy Jake and Bob joined the band, of course, they were rattles! A rattling frenzy ensued (Also Jonny fox's solo on the Jew's harp deserves special mention...amazing).
The next day we met Matej at the lomography embassy in Bratislava and had our first look at the Lomokino. We enjoyed our lunch in the restaurant carrage of the train to Topoľčany, there is something so great about dining on a train. Having only ever eaten a sandwich on a bus in the past I felt that I was finally moving up in the world! Topoľčany was beautiful and we spent the day watching Julo and Zuzana organising everything. Then it was time to meet the mayor before being whisked away to Zuzana's parents' house in the mountains, wow!
Friday the big day. We spent the morning running workshops with local schools. Lomography donated a box full of cameras and film so the students and bob went wild with analogue cameras! At lunch we narrowly avoided eating a milk and egg soup, thanks Zuzana! The evening was amazing. Julo and Zuzana run Nástupište 1-12 which is a huge multi media exhibition space in a bus station underpass. You wouldn't be able to organise something like this in England in a million years! Imagine walking into a London subway to find a four piece band playing, wine, beer and goulash being served, analogue cameras everywhere you look....oh and about 200 people happily waving their very own Bobs! fantastic!
