Foaie Verde
Foaie Verde (green leaf) is a visual journey through Transylvania. Originally commissioned by Opera North, the images have been developed into cinematic sequences and slideshows and combined with live music and recorded sound to create a visual and aural performance as well as forming a photo-essay on their own. Taken just before Romania's accession to the EU in 2007, these images capture a country on the cusp of change and yet still rooted in rural traditions. Peasant farmers travel to their fields by horse and cart, shepherds graze their flocks in the same pastures as their great-grandfathers and widows wear black to mourn the dead. Amongst these timeless images there are also signs of modern life, signs that the forests, which once hid Transylvania from the rest of the world, are now more permeable to outside influences.
Watch Quicktime movie
Light filters through the plastic sheeting wall of his hut as a shepherd makes a record of the
morning’s milk production.
A shepherd watches over his flock of sheep as they graze the hillside pastures.
A shepherd harnesses his horse for the journey to the local market where he will sell his sheep’s cheese.
While his sheep graze around him a shepherd pets his ram affectionately in the pasture.
Wild flowers adorn the hat of a shepherd.
Wild herbs and flowers in Mama Rosica’s basket. They will each be dried and prepared for medicinal or culinary use
Under the evening shade of her walnut tree Mama Rosica fills a jar with dill pickles.
A young man plays gypsy music on his father’s violin.
Mirrored by a fresco of christ, a widow kneels in prayer in church in Gherla.
Rosary beads and flowers lie on the body of Rozalia who died on her 80th birthday.
Mourners keep vigil over Rozalia’s body during her funeral in Gherla.
Touching each other to connect themselves to the coffin, mourners at Rozalia’s funeral offer prayers for the dead.
Standard bearers holding images of the saints walk at the front of Rozalia’s slow moving funeral procession.
A chicken briefly joins mourners in Rozalia’s funeral procession.
Standard bearers in Rozalia’s funeral procession arrive at the graveyard outside Gherla.
A young girl helps gravediggers cover Rozalia’s coffin with earth.
Iorjjica, once the first violin in Ceaucescu’s private orchestra, charms the birds in woodland outside Gherla.
Spent votive candles in the graveyard in Gherla.
Braving the cold waters, a young couple bath in Lake Firiza, north of Baia Mare.
A horse and cart, driven at a furious pace along a back road in Gherla.
A man and his Dacha car enjoy the warm evening air on the edge of the woods outside Gherla.
A flower grows up the lime-washed trunk of a walnut tree.
Dressed for a night out a trio cross railway lines on their way into Gherla’s town centre.
As evening draws in a shepherd drinks a glass of Palinka, a fruit distilled spirit, for which he has traded a
basket of field mushrooms.
Poppies bloom beside the railway lines running from Gherla to Bucharest in the South and Maramures in the North.