Metaphors of Independence: Poland In 100 Photos
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Nicolas Grospierre’s book is based on the impossible premise that it could contain proof of its own inception and destruction. 'Its very destruction (…) forms the basis of its own existence', writes the author in his description.
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How can one function in an oppressive system? Even though Jerzy Lewczyński often used humour, his commitment and critical approach were undeniable.
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Lives of the Unholy
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In his series Lives of the Unholy, Krzysztof Pijarski delves into the visual archaeology of Warsaw. He sees the city as a palimpsest, a constantly rewritten text filled with history and traces of the past. He seeks signs of former utopias and remnants of socio-political transformation.
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The photograph Urn is the result of a collaboration between visual artist Paweł Bownik and the National Library. The object in the photograph symbolises cultural heritage destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising.
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Is it worth photographing concentration camps and – if so – why? Aren’t attempts to refer back to tragic experiences doomed to failure from the outset?
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Tadeusz Rolke and Chris Niedenthal’s photographs allude to the tragic events in Jedwabne in 1941, as well as the new challenges that society faced following the collapse of Communism.
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The photographs from Maksymilian Rigamonti’s book Echo refer to memories of the generation that lived through the collective trauma of the Volhynia massacre.
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Greetings from Auschwitz
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Paweł Szypulski’s book contains reproductions of postcards sent from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, including the messages written on the back. The oldest of these postcards dates from 1946, a year after the camp was liberated.
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Mikołaj Długosz’s book contains photographs of consumer goods from the 1990s. By showing us old commercial photos, he offers a glimpse into the beginnings of capitalism in Poland.
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Published in Przekrój magazine in 2003, this work is derived from the famous photographic series Positives, in which Zbigniew Libera restaged well-known press photos but altered their message.
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Aneta Grzeszykowska’s work is composed of almost 200 photographs from her private archive, from which the artist has removed herself, thus creating a photographic autobiography without a leading lady.
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Young Amateur Photographer
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In his blog, the photographer publishes pictures he took in his childhood, thus touching on the role of archives in the process of recounting the past.
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Using amateur photographs, Wojciech Prażmowski has created a nostalgic work about the passage of time.
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The artist was interested in how anonymous people cope with major historical events. He listened to the stories of those who had seen death during the war, and photographed the sites of uncommemorated atrocities.
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Disappearing Circus
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In his melancholic portraits of circus artistes, Milach tells a story of individuals and confronts the viewer with images of another reality.
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Michał Łuczak’s book examines the final moments of Katowice’s unique railway station building, telling the story of its disappearance through people that he met there.
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In 2013, Marta Zgierska was involved in a serious car accident that left her struggling with both physical and mental hardships. This traumatic event gave rise to her Post series.
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Self-portrait with my Mother
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Karolina Jonderko photographed herself wearing the clothes of her mother, who had died of cancer a few years earlier.
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In Traces, Weronika Gęsicka deconstructs evocative images of American life taken during the post-war economic boom period.
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In 2014, Wojciech Wilczyk began to photograph murals on the theme of identity. In his latest project, the artist shows us fragments of the Polish landscape.
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A Close Acquaintance
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In this series of self-portraits, Paweł Żak demonstrates the inconsistencies of human nature and the illusory nature of photography. The story of how the pictures came into being is also a fitting comment on their content.
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Invisible Map of Wrocław
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This is a photograph from an unusual guidebook to Wrocław, in which the authors have attempted to reveal places of importance for the blind.
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Maciej Pisuk’s series is an empathetic story of economic exclusion, the past recorded in faces, and the power of interpersonal relations.
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For two years Krzysztof Gołuch photographed disabled employees at a hotel. His series won first prize in the Grand Press Photo 2018 competition.
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This subtle photograph depicts the reality of children’s hospitals – how the young patients grow up prematurely and how their guardians are helpless.
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This photograph is taken from Agnieszka and Maciek Nabrdalik’s book of portraits and interviews with concentration camp survivors.
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In 2005, Filip Ćwik photographed poverty-stricken places for Newsweek.
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The idea to photograph mothers and daughters appeared after one of the duo had a baby.
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Zuza Krajewska’s photographs depict teenagers on the cusp of adulthood at the Studzieniec youth detention centre.
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Jakub Certowicz demonstrates what life is like in 11–22 square metre apartments.
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This photograph of a lesbian couple holding hands was commissioned in 2003 by the Campaign Against Homophobia. Displayed on billboards, the photographic series launched a debate in society on issues of intolerance against homosexuals.
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This is a photograph from the book At The Border, a photographic essay on the illegal labour market in the European Union’s former new member states of Poland, Czechia, Slovenia and Slovakia.
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This photograph is taken from a book documenting a family of sixty Roma living in the Psie Pole district of Wrocław. It shows a fire started by their Polish neighbours in March 2012.
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The understated works in The Day Before series show times of deep reflection before critical events in women’s lives.
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Before arranging the sessions, the two women behind the project summed up their aim as ‘wanting to photograph shame’. They had meetings with people to interview them about uncomfortable topics while taking their portraits.
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The artist deals with issues of social exclusion and marginalisation. Down syndrome is an element which contributes to the uncommon beauty of his photographs.
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The artist was interested in exploring what lies beyond heterosexual norms.
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These works form a warts-and-all self-portrait of the artist, and indicate a desire to take control of her own image.
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I am a Woman and I Feast on Memory
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The artist’s work, inspired by queer theory, explores ways of building cultural identity.
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This photograph shows the reality of professional war reporters.
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This melancholy photograph by Patryk Karbowski is taken from his book about people seeking a better life in Warsaw.
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In 2008, the photographers took portraits of people whose hobby is historical reenactments.
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This photograph by Michał Szlaga comes from a series of spontaneous shots which interlock to form a bittersweet picture of Poland.
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FROWST is a series of staged photographs depicting family interdependencies. The artist was inspired by the psychotherapist Bert Hellinger’s method of Family Constellations.
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I like you, I like you a lot
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This picture of a Polish family sitting around a dinner table was taken after the tragic death of the photographer’s younger brother.
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This creative portrait from the 1960s conveys the experience of a generation raised under a totalitarian regime.
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My son slept in his pram on the balcony
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This sparse photograph concerns the ‘small-scale stabilisation’ under communism in Poland.
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Corporate Breakfast
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The Something Private series portrays the daily life, personal spaces and habits of office workers.
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This image, taken on the centenary of the restoration of Polish independence, is an example of staged photography imitating reality.
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Following in the footsteps of American photographers, Jeziorek took a photographic trip around Poland.
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This photograph documents an outdoor performance – the artist climbed a tree a day for a year. ‘It is my journal and private rebellion’, she explained.
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Pustoła’s project uses photography as a vehicle to let us see from the viewpoints of powerful people.
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Matzevot for Everyday Use
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The photographer documented examples of the uses for matzevot stolen from Jewish cemeteries.
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This analytical comment on Wąbrzeźno, a small town in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, shows Poland before it joined the European Union.
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This work was part of The Fog exhibition, in which the photographer raised the issue of coal’s impact on air quality in Silesia.
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‘I am weary of humanity and its behaviour’, said this multiple-award-winning photographer, who created his own view of the end of the world as we know it.
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Seventh Day Architecture
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During communist time in Poland grassroot funding of churches was one of the form of protest against the authorities. After the World War II, over 3700 temples were build in Poland.
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This is a photograph from behind the scenes of a breakfast TV programme featuring Polish female bodybuilders.
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This photograph shows the carcass of a modernist building from 1948, draped in the developer’s visualisation of its new incarnation.
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At their exhibition, the artists displayed screenshots from CCTV recordings, thus observing how people function in the presence of digital monitoring systems.
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Warsaw Photographer
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The artist was interested in the visual language employed by commercial photographers in Warsaw.
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Flirting by the Carpet-Beating Frame
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At the beginning of his artistic career, this director of photography and film director was also a keen photographer. His archive works are a light-hearted record of Polish society under communism.
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In this series of black-and-white square images, the photographer tells a story of Polish countryside, traces of human presence, and time.
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In this series of staged portraits, Adam Pańczuk has managed to catch the remarkable relationship between humanity and nature.
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Dziesięciny (Tithes)
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Kuba Dąbrowski’s photograph depicts everyday life during the transition period.
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Napoleon in Poland? Local legend has it that the famous leader once relaxed in Poland in July 1810.
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The photographer has produced an unpretentious report showing a group of boys from Biskupice, a notorious district of Zabrze.
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Still Far Away from Paradise
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The photographer illustrates how people cope with their humdrum lives in a former spa area.
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Portrait of the Provinces
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Dędek’s documentary project is dedicated to small towns in Poland.
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Afterimages of Poland
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This photograph comes from a book documenting the first phase of the systemic transformation process which began in Poland after socialism collapsed in 1989.
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This photograph of children playing by the barbed-wire fence of the former death camp was taken in 1977.
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The photographer captured the emotions of people gathered on Warsaw’s Krakowskie Przedmieście after hearing the news of the plane crash in Smolensk. His pictures won a third prize in the 2011 World Press Photo contest.
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This chronicler of the Soviet Union’s collapse and the democratic changes in Central and Eastern Europe travelled around Warsaw’s outlying villages on the day of the first partially free Polish elections.
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Michał Szlaga was documenting the Gdańsk Shipyard area for thirteen years.
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Exploding shell hits the Prudential building
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This iconic photograph was taken during the Warsaw Uprising, on September 28, 1944, while the city was being bombed. The striking dust cloud was the result of an exploding 2-tonne mortar shell.
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In 2005, Konrad Pustoła photographed houses left in a shell state. The abandoned constructions are a good illustration of aspirations of the times of economic boom.
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Hateful graffiti on the wall of a Cardiff building inspired the photographer to walk from Wales to Poland. Along the way, he asked people he met, "What is home?"
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Portrait of Wisława Szymborska
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This series of portraits of the poetess resembles notes from a memorable meeting.
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In 2012, Patryk Karbowski released a book about the first generation to grow up online.
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In 2003, Konrad Pustoła took photographs around some print shops in the Warsaw suburb of Legionowo, focusing on the visual language deployed by advertisers.
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Technically flawed but honest and spontaneous – such were the photographs taken by children during workshops in areas with record high unemployment.
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Apart from wars, Krzysztof Miller also used to photograph daily life in Poland. One day, while returning from a failed assignment, he noticed a drunk cyclist near Siedlce.
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This photomontage was part of an exhibition which was awarded a Golden Lion at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
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Now I'm Here. Or perhaps, rather, Nowhere
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Famous for his sharp tongue, this conservative writer was also a keen amateur photographer.
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The photographer documented provincial reality at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, concentrating on ‘vanishing points’ – transient elements in the landscape, small-scale architecture, and urban decorations.
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Carousel by the Ghetto Walls
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This photograph shows a merry-go-round near the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was mentioned by Czesław Miłosz in one of the Nobel prize-winner’s most famous poems, Campo de’ Fiori – the first reaction to the Holocaust in Polish literature.
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I Open and Close my Eyes
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For the photographer, this conceptual work based on two portraits of an elderly woman was a search for the meaning of life.