Helmets and photographs

In 1811, just a few kilometers from the Negova Castle, the farmer Jurij Slaček was clearing his land when suddenly he found something unexpected. 26 bronze helmets were carefully stacked not too deep underground. They had different shapes and were made in different times, two thousand years ago. Who buried them and why, is still a mystery. One theory is that they were used in a ritual, the other is that they must have been battle spoils collected over a long period of time. Today, the helmets can be seen in different museums - unfortunately none of them are in Negova.

The helmets are just one of the interesting stories surrounding the castle. There is another spooky one about a Turkish soldier who, during an invasion, climbed over the wall of the castle - and later was buried alive in the wall of the castle. Or about the two prisoners, sentenced to death, whose last task was to dig a well for the castle - they dug, with inapt tools, working day and night, an 80 meter deep well. Thus, their lives were spared and they gained their freedom. These are intriguing stories but if you are managing a newly renovated (and empty) castle and looking for contents to fill it, you face a major challenge. These stories are not quite enough by themselves to attract visitors. So the castle operators had to come up with a completely different approach. They were looking for a solution which doesn’t cost too much money, fits the elegance of the castle but at the same time can bridge the rich past of the place with the modern times we live in.

The idea was simple, but turned out to be brilliant: to become a photo exhibition center. Taking the task seriously, the very first exhibit was organised so well, that the FIAP (The International Federation of Photographic Art) awarded them the prestigious status of FIAP Exhibition Center. Negova Castle (under the new name Fotograd Negova) became the fifth such center in the world. The main mission of these venues is to promote photographers and their works more widely but also to open a window for us to see how the art of photography is evolving around the globe. Accompanying the several yearly exhibitions, lectures and talks are also organised about the exhibited images. Fotograd Negova invites the greatest photographers from and beyond the region, giving the chance to the visitors to travel across time and space and (through the often strong social commentary of the pictures) encounter different world views.

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Having fun in the Grajski Tabor (Photo by Tourism association Negova-Spodnji Ivanjci).