vernissage, 06.10.2023 / hour 19.00 / Galeria Centrala / Pl. Cyryl Ratajskiego 6a, Poznań, PL / exhibition open until 1.12.2023
The author's presentation is a commentary on the complicated relationship between man and trees in the face of the reconstruction of Polish forests, which has been observed for years.
Title Forestry works to the process of changing the species structure of forests through the planting of, for example, beech or oak trees, more hardy
to progressive climate change than the common pine or spruce, which dominate our Polish forest landscape.
The goal of the activities commented on by the artist is to preserve the biological richness of forest ecosystems.
At the same time, there is a theme of constant sourcing of raw material, namely wood.
The exhibition is intended to help start a discussion on forest management and the emotions that accompany logging.
The curriculum at the Forestry Departments includes classes such as forestry transportation, logging, forestry economics and hunting management.
What is missing, however, are classes devoted to the emotional bond between man and the forest and its effects on our psyche.
Maybe that's why foresters often don't understand this bond. Meanwhile, the forest remembered by a person is part of his identity, the location of important memories.
The view that it is time to exclude even 20% of our forests from logging and leave them to nature is resounding more and more often and louder.
However, no new National Park has been established in Poland for 22 years, and the unique old-growth forests in places like the Carpathian Primeval Forest are subject to forest management,
whose main priority is the extraction of raw materials, and whose consequence is the destruction of the environment.
New plantings of about 500 million trees a year cannot realistically balance the felling or restore devastated ecosystems.
Michal Luczak - (born 1983) - photographer, visual artist, curator. Works mainly with photography and video.
Graduate of the Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic, and Spanish Philology at Silesian University in Katowice.
He has been part of the Sputnik Photos collective since 2010. He co-leads the annual Sputnik Photos Mentoring Programme documentary photography workshop and teaches at the Faculty of Arts of the Pedagogical University of Krakow. In recent years, he has been focusing on the complex and ruthless relationships between humans, their immediate environment and the natural environment.
He doesn't look far - his most recent work focuses on local issues, such as the consequences of the coal industry or the economic treatment of forests, which can also be viewed universally. He is the author of photography books: Brutal (2012), Circle of Place / Elementary (with Krzysztof Siwczyk, 2016), 11.41 (with Filip Springer, 2016).
His work has been awarded in such competitions as the Magnum Expression Award, the Mio Photo Award and the Photographic Publication of the Year.This year's nominee for the Prix Pictet 10th edition of "HUMAN".
The exhibition will be accompanied by an author's meeting, workshops but also a discussion of the human-tree-wood relationship.
The reason for the discussion, in addition to the exhibition and workshop itself, is the Swedish capital's decision to build a Stockholm Wood City - the first modern neighborhood fully realized in wood.