Heading home....

My short residency in Kosice, Slovakia is at an end. I'm on my way home, delighted to have taken part in the exchange programme which allowed me access to the Getrag company in Kosice and, more importantly, to work with a talented and original photographer who played host to me during my stay and helped make everything run so smoothly. I am very much looking forward to Jaris' reciprcol visit to Liverpool the week after next and to working with him at the Getrag factory at Halewood and showing him around Merseyside. I'll post some images from the trip soon, but in the meantime why not take a look at Jaris' work, not only his stills photography, but his wonderful music videos.

To view work by Jaris, please visit www.jarisonline.net

Biela Noc, Kosice

Almost on cue, that song was playing in the taxi from the station to the hotel in Kosice. You know the one, the massive international hit which defined a moment and inspired a generation but was regarded as no more than a sing-along in England. No, not that Adele song that everyone belts out, but Wind of Change by Scorpions, the anthem which was accompanied by the crashing sound of the Berlin Wall tumbling down and eastern Europe turning from communism to fledgling capitalism almost overnight.

But while the tune endures, the sentiment is long gone. Countries such as Slovakia are unrecognisable from the early 1990s, when, in point of fact, the country didn't even exist. Now it nestles independently and proudly on the European Union's easternmost flank, a country on a seemingly upward trajectory, albeit a slow one (trajectory that is, not country).

Part of the renaissance has been down to aggressively attracting inward investment to utilise the educated skills and knowledge base which exists as a legacy of the old socialist system which prided itself in free education for all. And to add to this sense of place, a burgeoning cultural programme is being established, one which will see Kosice don the mantle of European Capital of Culture in 2013.

One notable event which already takes place, however, is White Night (or Biela Noc as they say around here), an annual arts event which last Saturday celebrated its 10th anniversary with a powerful and, well illuminating international programme of installations, performance and multimedia. The night attracted 30,000 visitors to the city centre, impressive for a city with an overall population of 220,000. I spent an evening soaking up the atmosphere feeling that I was part of something special. It was a privilege to be invited here to be part of it and interpret the event through my photography.

The wind of change continues to blow!

Arrival in Kosice

I'd forgotten about Shengen. Maybe it's because the UK is so paranoid about its borders, but as I sat expectantly in the railway carriage, passport clutched in my hand, nervous with anticipation of crossing a new frontier, I just assumed a large-hatted border guard would embark the train at one of the lightless, anonymous Hungarian halts and demand my papers. But no. My train passed softly into Slovakia and came to a stop some minutes later at my destination, Kosice.

Did I say a new frontier? Well, that's not strictly true. I had visited this part of the world before, however, the circumstances and the time of my stay means that it feels as if it belonged to a different age. Which, in a sense it did. Back then, as a 14-year-old on a family holiday, it was Czechoslovakia, a country very much in the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, only a decade on from the Prague Spring of '68. Getting over the border then, in 1979, was an ordeal which lasted most of the day, as I recall. Visas endlessly checked, the car virtually ransacked and taken apart by zealous but sleepy border guards. Currency exchanged and tensions high before finally we were free to proceed into Bratislava until... the car's exhaust fell off. The next six hours of a somnolent Sunday was taken up with negotiating a temporary retreat and re-entry to the country. Strictly against the rules, but we had stumbled on a group of officials who, thankfully, took pity on our by now frantic family. And so it was that I entered Slovakia for the first time. And I've not been back, until now.

I am in Kosice as part of an exchange programme which is being established by the city's authorities here to allow photographers from Liverpool (European Capital of Culture in 2008, of course) and Kosice, which will have that honour in 2013 to visit each others city and make work. My brief is extensive for a one-week stay: photographing an automobile transmissions factory, producing a project with a local photographer, the enigmatically named Jaris, and documenting White Night, an annual event at which the city is illuminated by installations and performance by creative people from across Europe. And there's also the Kosice Peace Marathon, the longest-established European marathon taking place during my stay. So plenty to do and not much time to blog so far!

The photo shows the scene at platform six of Budapest's Keleti station, just prior to departure on the final leg of a journey that had started in a taxi at 3.30am and taken me via Amsterdam to Budapest and then on the train to Kosice.

For more information about Kosice 2013, please visit http://www.kosice2013.sk/en