This project is about a gypsy girl who has been suffering from cancer. Not many people think about people with cancer in terms of disability. However, cancer in its various forms leads to the situation when children get deprived of their usual lifestyle for months, and sometimes for years they are confined in hospitals. I’ve chosen this gypsy family because the disease has no nationality. And the gypsies are still one of the discriminated social groups. This is the only gypsy family and the only Orthodox family in the Catholic village. Fatima lives with four small children, and in order to take care of the sick daughter in the hospital, she has to leave the rest of the children with relatives. Cancer cannot be cleaned completely. There is only remission, and it means that disease can come back any time again. This is a story about the childhood steered by disease. This is about the inability to go to school, play sports and live a full life. This is a story about a ceaseless fear of losing a child and a long hard road to remission. When Milana plays a questions-answers game, she would usually asks: ” Tell me, will I live?” There are still people who do not know that cancer is not contagious and they are afraid to communicate with cancer patients. Many people are even afraid to talk about their illness and are left alone with their problems. The same thing happens with the theme of gypsies. We try not to discriminate, but bypass them.
Kseniya Halubovich
Princess Milana
About the Artist
Artist WebsiteKseniya Halubovich is a documentary photographer and a film director, based in Minsk, Belarus. She graduated Belarusian State Academy of Arts and works on various photo and video projects on social issues.