A Girl from the Forest

Photographer Lena Jakubčáková dedicated many years to meticulously documenting the life of Katarína Kiovská, also known by some as “the girl from the forest.” Jakubčáková had known Kiovská since childhood, when, alongside her mother, she was the last barrier to the completion of the ambitious socialist project of the Ružín water reservoir in the 1960s. Over the years, Jakubčáková captured Kiovská’s daily life, her home environment, and fragments of their conversations, creating a profound and intimate portrait of a resilient woman who resisted the pressures of the totalitarian regime. The unique A Girl from the Forest photo project combines an intimate, time-lapse documentary approach with rigorous archival research, resulting in a multi-layered publication that presents a precisely crafted visual narrative of one extraordinarily strong woman’s life.