Wiktor Dąbkowski Wins Espy Photography Award
The Wiktor Dąbkowski photo series “1200 buried alive”, about Poles who emigrated to France, received first prize at the 2014 Espy Photography Award competition.
ONNAING, photo. Wiktor Dąbkowski
The theme of this year's competition was “Rural and Urban”. The judges wanted pictures which told the story of specific places through the prism of local culture, architecture, geography and geology.
1200 buried alive presents the history of Poles who migrated to northern France in the 1920s to work in the local mines. Wiktor’s grandparents were among them. The inspiration for the project was the archival newspapers issued in Polish before the war. Dąbkowski focused on sensational stories that happened in this area between 1926-1936, which is also the period when his grandparents lived there. In his black-and-white project, he tried to represent events from the past, visiting the places mentioned in the articles.
Wiktor Dąbkowski, a Polish political scientist and economist, hosted the popular Dragon’s Top Chart Show aired on Catholic Radio Płock in the 90s. After losing his job at the radio station, he took up political photography. After the Polish accession to the EU, he went to Brussels to take pictures of politicians. He was the only Polish photographer there. Dąbkowski currently works with agencies such as Zuma Press, DPA, Action Press, Photoshot and the Polish Press Agency.
In time, the artist began to photograph not only politicians, but the entire bureaucratic machine of Brussels. In the project Wonderland (2012), he showed the a lesser-known side to the Brussels parliamentary life - corridors, equipment, ordinary officials, and places where they work and rest. Wonderland was shown in, amongst others, Brussels, Warsaw, and Strasbourg.
Embeded gallery style
display gallery as slider
1200 Buried Alive is part of a larger project featuring Polish immigrants in different countries around the world. Some of the photos and the project’s history can be found in the No.2 book which will soon be published by the photographic collective Sputnik Photos.
Elysium Gallery in Swansea, UK, will host the photographic exhibition of this year's Espy Photography Award contestants. It will be open until March 29.
Źródło: PAP, ed. NZ., translated: Katarzyna Maksimiuk, 13.03.2014
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