A City of Children in Hungary

• Prize
• Photographer
  Monika Merva, United States
• Website
  http://www.monikamerva.com

The situations in these pictures seem common: a quiet moment alone, teenage boys lounging. The environments are familiar: a schoolyard, a kitchen, and a teenager?s bedroom. This is the everyday at the Karloyi Istvan Gyermekkozpont, a government housing facility for children seeking help from their dysfunctional families. They call this place ?The City of Children.?
During several visits over the years I realized how important love, understanding, and commitment are to keeping a community together.
The project titled, City of Children is based on the visual premises of the Family Album. Preserving memories, elevating a simple moment while trying to gain insight into these complex lives.
Since 2002 I have photographed the children in and around their home, a using a Contax medium format camera, and natural light. The shots are not set-up or posed so as to avoid sentimentality and preserve the authenticity of what I witnessed, a community of disenfranchised children living together as family.
As a photographer I have always been interested in capturing the culture of community. As a first generation in America of Hungarian decent, my interest in Gyermekkozpont is personal. I spent my childhood summers in Hungary, speak the language and have extended family there. My focus on Gyermekkozpont comes from understanding that one?s sense of self comes with a sense of community and place.

• Biography
  Monika Merva born in 1969 graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in Philosophy and received her MFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art 
and Design. After moving to New York, she worked as a freelance photographer for several magazines, such as The New Yorker, Details and The New York Times Magazine. When she?s not on assignment she focuses on her personal project, about children living in a group home in Fot, Hungary. The series is titled City of Children. Monika discovered this special and forward thinking institution while visiting her family in Hungary. She is a first generation Hungarian living in America, who speaks English and Hungarian fluently. Awards include First place in The Finch Paper Photography Competition, First place and Judge?s Choice Award, for the ASMP Image 05 competition and Honorable Mention in American Photo magazine, Images of the Year Competition for 2007 and 2008. Her photographs have been exhibited in the U.S and internationally. Her work is in public collections such as the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, George Eastman House, Hungarian Museum of Photography, and the Johnson & Johnson Corporate Art Collection. Merva has recently returned from Budapest, Hungary where her show The City of Children is on exhibit. Galerie Majke Husstege in the Netherlands represents her.