A Flower in Gamine Frames

There is no literal translation for "identity" in the Slovak-Vietnamese dictionary. Through her work, Kvet gives voice and shape to that missing word. As a photographer, she explores otherness and the shared life of minorities within the majority.

23. June 2022, Author: Paula Blahová, Photo: Jakub Čaprnka

In art, she's always been drawn to what breaks the current. Today her images search not just for herself, but for the collective experience of a community living in a foreign environment.

Through her camera, she writes the story of her ancestors, her friends, and complete strangers who, on the path toward a better future, meet with misunderstanding, prejudice, and racism.

More Than Photography

This past February, she documented people at the Ukrainian-Slovak border through the platform fjuzn, and has published several essays on migration and identity. The themes Kvet works with reach beyond art into activism. Just recently she stood by the proposal to recognize the Vietnamese community as a national minority in Slovakia.

"Through photography I find not only myself, but a whole community of people who feel like I do. I want to change the way people in minorities are seen. The visual form I choose feels most natural to me."

Finding ZITA

Kvet came to us through friends. She tried on several pairs before settling on the Gamine Gabie – lightweight, minimalist frames in a warm brownish-pink shade. They sit gently on her face, understated yet distinctive.

We're glad her search led her to us, and that these frames now accompany her on her journeys – both behind the camera and beyond.