In Slovakia

 I am returning today with some final posts on the Ottawa Welcomes The World embassy series. This time I am featuring Slovakia's turn, which took place at Lansdowne Park on the first day of October.

Inside the Horticulture Building, traditional clothing, crafts, and a wealth of information on the country and its history were on display. Slovakia peacefully partitioned from the Czech Republic after the Cold War, a stark contrast to what was going on in the former Yugoslavia at the time, and today the country is part of the European Union.

These are photographs done by Jaroslav Horency, who's been photographing in his homeland since the 1970s. These are all to be found in a village called Cicmany in northern Slovakia, each home decorated in unique ways characteristic of local culture.

This was art of a different kind, a mixture of photography and acrylic that was dazzling to see. It's called Party In The 21st Century- party in this case is a Slovak word, the singular being parta, referring to a traditional headband often worn at a wedding. A pair of photographers collaborated with a painter, ethnographers, models, and a make up artist for these, and the results were richly imaginative, dream-like, and vivid.

On stage, a group of young women were performing a traditional dance.