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.
Prażmowski produced White-Red-Black as a reaction to changes in common space and a growing feeling that time was slipping away. He sensed that:
Text
We are facing something that is about to happen: it might be the European Union or whatever else. This is our last chance to record vanishing points, although I believe we are already too late. Soon, we will be saying: ‘This is what horses looked like, this was a plough, and this was a normal house’.
Prażmowski has declared that he strives for maximum authenticity in his photographs. ‘If that is missing, I stop believing in it, which affects the quality,’ he says. While working on the project, he realised that he needed to get better acquainted with the objects he planned to immortalise. He wanted to touch them, talk about them, see them at close quarters. He explained:
Text
I didn’t just want to snap off some shots and get out, then sneer about it. If I took a photo of something, it was because I found it interesting.
To ensure his close contact with reality, he bought a 17-year-old moped and rode around numerous Polish villages and small towns, mostly in the Częstochowa area, taking photographs. For Prażmowski, getting outsiders to show an interest lent dignity to the locals and their world.
These photographs from 1999–2000 include old signs, benches with swan-shaped frames, and a stuffed elk. The artist has tried to faithfully portray the raw, unembellished reality. His project could be interpreted as a critique of the globalisation processes that were reshaping the Polish landscape back then, as well as an attempt to appreciate the here and now.
