Spirit above Waves The project shows disabled swimmers in a pool. Almost all people enjoy competing, because it belongs to our human nature, to our animalistic status.
And the water is a prenatal liquid. Blurring the distinctions. Even allows three axes movement simultaneously, thus up and down. In water due to floating, humans levitate like birds. Ten percent of total world population consists of people with some form of physical disability. In Central and Eastern Europe, living with a disability means overcoming many obstacles. One of the main reasons was the effort of communist regime in the former Eastern bloc to assimilate people with mental or physical disabilities, and to clean up and locked them into special care institutions, which only caused a deeper social exclusion. Thus the society was naturally full of prejudices against disability. Disabled disappeared out of sight and off the streets. After the collapse of the socialist bloc in 1989, the newly formed democratic society became more open. The handicapped emerged in new hope.
About Jan Caga
Jan Caga, an award winning photographer, was born in a small industrial town Hodonin, Czechoslovakia in 1976. After graduating from university in Art Design he began working as a freelance magazine/journal photographer. Later he started to work mainly on long-term fine art projects, exploring the status of contemporary society.
Because life is such a rich and still open book and the world is constantly changing. It’s not just wars, social problems and riots as intentionally presented in the media. Naturalness, pleasures, sorrows and subtle nuances that differentiate one man from another. Of course interaction between beings. Man create and transform the world in its image and attempting to do the best he can. For a photographer, the globalization does not make the world smaller, but instead of it, creates a new and wider context.
Jan has received numerous awards in international photo contests such as several prizes in the Czech Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International competition, Grand prize PhotoEspana OjodePez Award of Human Values, New York Photo Awards, Kaunas Photo etc. [Official Website]
