In 1993 I photographed a group of scarecrows that appeared to be advancing or dancing toward an isolated house in the Czech countryside, this was the beginning of my fascination with the wabi sabi* beauty of these haunting sentinels in the fields. The scarecrows are usually created by the older generation of women, known affectionately as babicka (grandmother). As the generation of women aged and died the craft of scarecrow making began to disappear. The older style scarecorws are now replaced with simple constructions of sticks, twine and bottles, sadly lacking the creativity and quirky anthropomorphic characteristics. I now travel further and further east to less populated and accessible areas of Slovakia, Poland, Romania and Hungary to find traditional scarecrows in areas where the economic conditions have not yet improved significantly. In these remote villages time flows a little slower. Farm work is still done by hand, horse drawn carts transport hay and crops, and the lifestyle reflects the tradition of previous generations. The scarecrows are representatives of the faded and fading places, overlooked customs, and crafts that tenuously adhere in the swiftly changing Mittleuropan cultural identity.
The Vanishing Scarecrows of Eastern Europe
by Annette Elizabeth Fournet
