The project consists of two parts – grainy press photographs and staged portraits taken with a large-format camera. The second series depicts people in their own environments – houses, workplaces, or municipal festivities.
Dędek refers to the works of Zofia Rydet and her Sociological Record, but, in my opinion, his photographs echo the work of August Sander or the Zorka Project collective. As a rule, his subjects are placed in the middle of the frame and stare directly into the lens. In Portrait of the Provinces, people are always in the foreground and more exposed than in Rydet’s works. Dędek does not startle his subjects with flash photographs; he spends time with each of them, and they reward him with a trustful gaze.
Dędek has created an impressively extensive portrait of the Polish provinces during the second decade of the 21st century. He tells the story of that period through the people he photographed and little details – text on clothes, fragments of adverts, and urban elements in the background.
Originally written in Polish, translated by AG, edited by MB, Dec 2018