I have had the privilege of photographing one of Europe's largest Roma settlements, Lunik IX in Kosice, Slovakia, often described as the largest modern ghetto. Over the course of seven visits from 2017 to 2021, I established a rapport with the community, gaining their trust and eventually gaining access to their homes. My genuine openness, coupled with a clear and respectful explanation of my photographic intentions, proved essential in this process. I witnessed firsthand the harsh realities of life at Lunik IX, with families of up to twelve members sharing cramped one-room apartments or makeshift sheds amidst squalor, infestations of rats, cockroaches, and bedbugs, and a lack of basic amenities such as running water and adequate heating. Apart from all the harsh conditions, I also had the opportunity to portray their strength, openness, independence and hear about the dreams of a better life spoken by the youngest residents of Lunik IX.

It is a series of photos of children and teenagers living at Lunik IX – a district in Košice, Slovakia, almost entirely inhabited by Roma people. Among few thousand inhabitants live more than 1,000 children.
 They live in unworthy conditions, sometimes with a dozen or so family members, nestling in twenty square meters. Children living at Lunik IX live like in the ghetto, but often do not see it like that, playing with joy and smiling. The Roma are by far the most long-term discriminated against minority in the EU. Eighty percent of Roma in the EU still live below the poverty line in their country. Every third Rom lives in a building without running water, and every tenth in a building without electricity. Every fourth Roma child and every third Roma child live in a household where they experienced hunger at least once in the previous month. [European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2017]