I Don’t Want to Go Back to the Constant FOMO: An Interview With Paweł Starzec

In his work, Paweł Starzec focusses on the connections between space, history and their social constructs. He is a sociologist who deals with visuality, contemporary iconography and the sociology of space. He is also a lecturer and teacher, workshop leader and co-creator of the Azimuth Press artists’ collective and publishing house. Starzec is a doctoral candidate at the University of Warsaw’s Institute of Applied Social Scientists, as well as a student at the Institute of Creative Photography at the University of Silesia in Opava. Additionally, he is a musician and sound artist who performs solo and with the Mazut project. He lives and works in Warsaw. www.pawelstarzec.com

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Wyspa Tamka club, Wrocław, photo: Paweł Starzec

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Michał Dąbrowski (MD): Where were you when the pandemic broke out?

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Paweł Starzec (PS): I was at home – that is, in my apartment in Warsaw. I remember that the lockdown happened on a Friday, and the Thursday before was a day full of crazy shopping and storming the supermarkets – it was no different for me.

That Wednesday was the premiere of my friend Michał Turowski’s book Atlas Energetyków [Atlas Energetics]. I took the photos for it and wrote the foreword. The project was two months of work, so after the premiere, we celebrated a bit. In the morning, I woke up with a hangover and found out about the lockdown. My girlfriend, Martyna, and I didn’t even have basic groceries at home. In this sad state, I drove around the city until 16:00 getting supplies.

The lockdown meant a severe slowdown for me. The weekend before, I was at work in Poznań, and then in Łódź. Looking back, this was probably the first time since I moved to Warsaw that I had sat in one place for so long.

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MD: What has changed in your everyday life?

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PS: I’ve stopped leaving. Before, this was a fundamental element of my professional and artistic life. I was also going regularly to the School of Form in Poznań, where I teach. The day after the lockdown was announced, I was supposed to be at the university in Opava, in the Czech Republic. The pandemic changed the rhythm of my work.

My girlfriend and I were extremely lucky – we had adopted a dog less than a month before the pandemic, so the lockdown was starting in a phase when we were starting to understand him and his needs better. I used to carry poop bags in every pocket. During the lockdown, we had a lot of time to train Zima [Winter], to spend time with him.

At one point, the dog turned out to be the only reason we were allowed to leave the house. There was a moment when I thought that I would photograph people with their dogs, because those were the only people you would meet outside. But I only ended up taking one photo like that.

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‘It’s been a month since the pandemic was announced, and we have no idea if we’re going to stay closed for the next week, month or year.’ – Witek, owner of the Hydrozagadka and Chmury clubs, photo: Paweł Starzec

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Hydrozagadka club, Warsaw, photo: Paweł Starzec

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Chmury club, Warsaw, photo: Paweł Starzec

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MD: What kinds of feelings and thoughts have you been having during the pandemic?

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PS: Martyna and I have had a lot of fears. We’re part of the prekariat [a social category which includes people employed under flexible conditions], so any slowdown affects our lives pretty quickly. We were thinking that from now on, we would really need to distribute our work over time – because it was looking like we would have a four-month dry period, without any income. Fortunately, it didn’t turn out that way, because, unexpectedly, more requests for photographers suddenly started coming in – the newspapers needed the latest stories, like with the car protests [in April, Poles protested against a proposed abortion ban from their cars].

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MD: Have you been reading the news during the pandemic?

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PS: I’ve always read a lot of news – it’s like an addiction – but during the pandemic, I’ve stopped doing it. I’ve been really disappointed in the press. The experts have been betting on how long it will take for things to get back to normal. I’ve stopped reading the news. It turns out that the important information will get back to me anyway. I just haven’t had the strength for this hodgepodge, with everyone predicting whether the curve has already flattened or not, whether the clubs will be opening now or soon.

It’s felt like a breath of fresh air, which is a lot more important to me than the 17th expert opinion.

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MD: Do you think this could be a permanent change?

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PS: I think so, because I’m better off now. Rather than living in an introverted bubble, and being proud of that, I feel rather good now when I’m around people. I don’t have a huge impulse to sit on the sofa and watch TV shows, so the first dozen or so days were torture for me. Later, it turned out to be OK. I don’t want to go back to the constant FOMO [Fear of Missing Out].

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‘The topic of food-industry employees isn’t showing up in public discussion. From day to day, this group has been left without a way to earn money. In addition to being a club, we’re a social cooperative, and we don’t want to fire anyone. If it weren’t for pooling our money, some 20 people would have no way of supporting themselves.’ – Zuzia & Gosia, members of the Pogłos cooperative, photo: Paweł Starzec

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Pogłos club, Warsaw, photo: Paweł Starzec

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MD: How does the internet affect your relationships?

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PS: I started meeting up with my friends from my hometown almost every week – but on the internet. I’m very happy to be rebuilding these relationships this way. Online, it doesn’t matter that everyone is in a different part of Poland. I don’t know what to compare it to… I think everyone has the kind of friends they would send a photo to from a furniture store, when they’re having trouble picking something out – or a group chat where you complain about your day and send silly photos.

So the distances are becoming blurred. In addition to that, there’s working at home, which is nothing unusual for people in my industry, unlike for my friends who work full-time. The university where I work quickly shifted to online, so I taught my studio class. At least I could smoke during the lecture.

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MD: Why did you choose to photograph the closed clubs?

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PS: In addition to photography, I play electronic music, which is why I’m often in touch with these kinds of clubs, and I’m friendly with some people at one of them.

Music clubs haven’t made the headlines as a lockdown topic – and I don’t mean that in any particular way, because it often sounds like that.

The situation for restaurants, bars, hairdressers and shops has been written about commented on much more widely. The clubs were the last to freeze over. Knowing how these places function, such as how things have to be in constant motion, I was curious how many of them would be able to withstand three months of being closed. Producing events is expensive, and you barely earn more than your costs.

In most of my long-term projects, I’m looking for ways to talk about a larger phenomenon from the outskirts, or through the traces it leaves on its surroundings. It was similar in this case. In this situation, I was fascinated by the fact that the threat couldn’t be photographed – the empty streets weren’t really empty at all.

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MD: So these were alternative clubs you photographed?

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PS: Yes. In addition to these, there are two café-clubs in this set. I started out with the electronic scene, but there aren’t so many places. I only had five to seven places in Warsaw on my list. The two café-clubs are Warsaw’s Plan B and Czuła Jest Noc in Wrocław. These are cult places which also play music.

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‘The only thing we could do was organise and start streaming online. We’ve started working with Galeria BWA, which has resulted in an unusual project for people who haven’t had access to art. An exhibition from the closed gallery was moved to a bus which you could take like a taxi. Over time, I learned to put together the whole exhibition in a matter of minutes.’ – Horsy, co-manager of Wyspa Tamka, photo: Paweł Starzec

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Wyspa Tamka club, Wrocław, photo: Paweł Starzec

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Plan B club, Warsaw, photo: Paweł Starzec

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‘We’re trying to guess – what next? Will it be like Italy before they finally close everything? Will we be able to open the gardens? We’re trying to keep our employees, find things for them to do, do repairs, and spend what we’ve been able to put aside in these last years. Whatever the government says, we’re going to help each other faster than any help is going come from the outside. When it’s over, we’ll have a big party. I don’t know who’s going to play there yet, but I know I won’t be leaving this place for a few days.’ – Michał, co-owner of Plan B, photo: Paweł Starzec

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MD: What did you learn in the conversations with the owners?

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PS: The same story appeared in a few places – the people in charge of these venues felt left out of strategic planning. They didn’t get the information about the planned closures, which meant they had to stay ready for it all the time. Cultural policy outside of the museums and galleries was the last concern.

I tried to look at these spaces as workplaces – it’s difficult to find financial stability there. In this kind of industry, it’s all prekariat. At one of these places, the owner decided to do renovations during the lockdown, but mainly so that his employees could get paid and earn something besides unemployment. Even though these places operate in the reality of the free market, many of them support each other, and they even pool their money together.

Some of the clubs tried to move online.

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MD: How did that turn out?

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PS: Warsaw’s Luzztro launched the Blue Oyster channel, and Wrocław’s Wyspa Tamka started their own TV station, where DJs and musicians play concerts. I think these have been free events, but where audiences can donate.

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‘We were supposed to celebrate the club’s first anniversary last weekend, before the lockdown, so we were twice as sad. We’d like to plan events for the fall, but no one knows what’s going to happen then – whether the nightlife is going to come back. There’s a lot of uncertainty.’ – Ola, 999

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MD: Will workers end up paying for the crisis?

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PS: I think so.

One of the positive effects of the pandemic might be raising awareness of the so-called ‘flexible’ forms of employment, the ‘junk contracts’, whatever we call them – that they exist and are still popular. I’ve been talking with a few people recently, and I’ve realised that for many of them, this problem has been completely invisible to them until now. Now, they’re asking – what will happen to people employed this way?

Another problem is pushing people into self-employment – although in that case, I would at least be able to count on government support. I didn’t have a regular contract, and I’m not an entrepreneur, so I got diddlysquat.

The crisis has already hit the media – a lot of publications have closed, or they will soon. A person wrote those articles; a person put together those magazines. All those people lost their jobs overnight.

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MD: Has the pandemic affected your financial situation?

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PS: Not in the way I expected, but it’s a matter of luck in my submissions and the requests coming in. I could even say I feel privileged, because I did have some savings.

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‘At this point, people can spend time outdoors, but we have a large garden space where we can’t even open an ice cream parlour. We’re trying to be smart about how to use this time – we’re cleaning up and doing some renovations, so that after some time, when everything opens up again, it will look more impressive.’ – Adrian, owner of the Iskra club, photo: Paweł Starzec

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Barka club, Warsaw, photo: Paweł Starzec

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MD: Have you tried submitting grant applications?

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PS: I could have sought support from the Culture Promotion Fund or applied for the Culture on the Web programme. I didn’t do it, because I didn’t want to scrawl something rushed or have to fit my ideas with the government’s. I would also have to spend a few days to write a good application, but with no guarantee of getting the support. I got a one-time, special-purpose subsidy from the Culture Promotion Fund – it was equal to our rent for a month.

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MD: What are you working on now?

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PS: Two weeks before the lockdown, I submitted a grant application for a project that I’ve been working on in Germany for two years now. At this point, I should be getting home from the third trip, but we know the situation. However, if the borders open up again, and they don’t shut us back in at home after the second round of the presidential elections, I might get back to this idea. I really wanted to take the photos before October, because we’re between the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 30th anniversary of the German reunification.

I’m also part of this year’s edition of the New Heat festival in the town of Nowe Miasto Lubawskie. I took photos there – there’s going to be a group exhibition there in September.

Just before the lockdown, I also recorded almost an entire Industry Standard solo album, but without the pressure to play live, I’ve already scrapped it a few times and re-recorded it.

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MD: Have you had new ideas for your life because of the pandemic?

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PS: Martyna and I have had a plan to professionalise, in terms of our education, for some time now. I’m also ABD, as they say [finishing a doctorate]. I was also working at the university during the lockdown. Sitting in one place for an extended period of time also gave me a number of design ideas, but it’s probably too early to talk about what direction these should go in.

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The first concert at Pogłos was organised at the end of June. For safety reasons, the stage was moved outside, to the club’s rear ramp, photo: Paweł Starzec

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