Power became transfixed by Poland and Poles in 2004 on a one-month project for Magnum. He came to realise that the initial investigations only scraped the surface of a country approximately the size of the other nine new EU members combined. Consequently, he made some 20 visits over the next 5 years. The Sound of Two Songs was the first album of Power's Polish material, and the first proclamation of his "love affair" with the country.
The second book, MASS, was released in a limited edition of 750 copies in 2013. Power examines the dominance and influence of the Catholic church in Poland. During autumn and winter 2010/11, the photographer sought permission to take pictures in over 50 Catholic church services in Kraków. As a lapsed Catholic, Power had already become fascinated by the great numbers attending Mass each day and by the intensity of their faith, crossing borders of class and age, often in settings of spectacular beauty.
In the book, each of the 18 portraits of a Mass is paired with a close-up of a collection slot where the congregation is encouraged to donate what they can. Power notes:
These [slots] act as a counterpoint to the beauty and celebratory grandeur of the interiors. There is much debate in Poland about the power and wealth of the church, perhaps most specifically in Krakow, and this was something I wanted to investigate and allude to. But what started out as a tirade against Catholicism soon turned to envy, both for the palpable sense of community and for a belief that I saw, understood, but simply couldn't reach.
He photographed each Mass from the choir high up at the back of the church, using long exposures of between a single and 20 seconds, depending on available light. Remembering from childhood that there were three points during a service when the congregation remains still for any length of time, he learned to follow the service in Polish and anticipate when these precious moments would occur.
Alec Soth, in his review of the album on the Little Brown Mushroom blog, writes:
Power’s book is striking in its simplicity and ingenious craftsmanship. Without introduction or afterword, Power presents 18 pictures of Catholic Church services in Krakow, Poland. Each image is presented as a large, exquisitely detailed fold-out of the congregation photographed from above. Preceding each lavish poster is a simple picture of the church’s humble collection slot.
Power’s first project devoted to Poland, The Sound of Two Songs, is a beautiful series of photographs eloquently describing the changing social values of a country caught between the past, the present and the future, in terms of attitudes and of the contradictions in its landscape. The book moves effortlessly between images of the urban and the rural, the old and the new, setting the crumbling inner city housing estates of the communist era against the new developments of colourful apartments and gleaming shopping centres.
Power’s project also explores the effect of global capitalism on the Polish landscape with advertising hoardings dominating the cityscape, setting a sharp contrast between the decay and aspiration of the country. The photographer commented on this first project:
Over time my focus inevitably shifted from an investigation into the effects of EU membership into a more subjective, poetic and autobiographical response to a country I grew to love.
The enviously curious exploration in Mass is the latest fruit of this love, pointing to what persists, in all of its contraditions, in an growingly evolving Poland - the Catholic faith.
Mark Power is an English photographer, born in Harpenden, England. He is a member of Magnum Photos and Professor of Photography in the Faculty of Arts and Architecture at the University of Brighton.
MASS
By Mark Power
Published in an edition of 750 in 2013 by GOST Books
All numbered and signed by Mark Power
ISBN 978-0-9574272-1-1
Last copies available here
The Sound of Two Songs
By Mark Power
Published by Photoworks in association with Photomonth Kraków in 2010
Edition of 2000
ISBN: 978-1-903796-39-9
Last copies available here
Editor: Paulina Schlosser, source: polishculture.org.uk, http://www.markpower.co.uk, http://www.littlebrownmushroom.com