21st Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Artistic
At the Horses Easter

The image " At the Horses Easter" is part of the ”Romanian Sayings Served Up on a Plate” series, depicting an artistic metaphor that emphasizes the knowledge of Romanian sayings and proverbs gathered from the wisdom of the people, confronted with the new reality created through manipulated truth and lies, served up daily on a plate. While we are witnessing the creation of a mind prison and the destruction of our beliefs and moral values, here, in the cradle of European civilization, we dare to cling blindly to ancestral teaching, which has maintained the continuity of the Romanian nation for thousands of years, and not through wars and invasions, but through peace, love, and faith. The images are created on a black plate (in Romanian the word "plate" has a double meaning: the first indicates a serving plate and the second refers to a place where the war takes place), conceptualizing the visual narrative of the saying, and the title is the referred Romanian saying. “At the Horses Easter” is a very used Romanian saying meaning never. A way of totally opting out of a deal is by giving a fake date, from an imaginary celebration. Ironically, The Horses Easter is still being celebrated in some parts of the country, with an uncertain date when the horses get fed up with eating grass. The saying was used by the local merchants to counteract the perfidy of the moneylenders from Fanar, to seal the deal, that you know will never come to fruition.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 03.2023
Date Uploaded: 11.2023
Photo Location: Nojorid, Romania
Camera: NIKON D610
Copyright: © Daciana Lipai