2016

Park Portraits

"Park Portraits" examines the social consequences of Romania’s transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy following the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. The economic transformations of the 1990s brought widespread industrial restructuring, factory closures, inflation, and unemployment. In 1993, Romania experienced an annual inflation rate of approximately 256%, while registered unemployment reached nearly 12% in 1999. Large segments of the population, whose professional lives had been shaped by the demands of the communist industrial economy, struggled to adapt to the new economic system. These structural changes also transformed the gender composition of unemployment. In 1993, women accounted for nearly 59% of registered unemployed people. By the late 1990s, this pattern had reversed, as the restructuring of traditionally male-dominated industries, particularly mining, metallurgy, and construction, disproportionately affected male workers. Although Romania's economy gradually stabilized and unemployment declined in the following decades, the consequences of this transformation continued to affect those whose professional skills and experience had become increasingly disconnected from the demands of the labor market. In the summer of 2014, Ghercă photographed six unemployed middle-aged men who gathered in Izvor Park, near the Romanian Parliament in central Bucharest. The park had become an informal meeting point for day laborers waiting to be approached with offers of temporary work. The project consists of five individual portraits, produced between June and August 2014. Each photograph is accompanied by a set of personal and professional details: the subject's name, the occupation he held for the longest period, his most recent job, and the amount of money he received for his last day of work. Through these portraits, Ghercă examines the human consequences of economic transformation, focusing on individuals whose working lives were shaped by a system that disappeared and who continued to struggle to find their place within the one that replaced it. 5 color portraits, 6x7cm medium format negative