opening: November 15 (Friday), 6:00 pm (admission to the opening is free) / November 15 - December 8, 2024 | chamber music hall
Organizer: BWA Art Gallery in Olsztyn
al. Marsz. Józef Piłsudski 38A
10-450 Olsztyn
"portretprowincji.pl" is a cross-sectional documentary project on small-town Poland. The work on collecting materials lasted a total of more than six and a half years, between January 2011 and mid-2017, all over Poland, in all provinces, in towns of no more than 30,000 inhabitants. The authors (Jacenty Dędek and his wife Katarzyna) visited several hundred towns and villages, the photos were created in 421 localities.
We tried to create a multifaceted story about people living in small cities, towns, villages. Despite moving in local areas, we wanted to tell about universal issues, those that can affect each of us. Important were social themes, interpersonal relations, life's inconveniences, the things that perplex and, although they concern our specific heroes by name, are known to everyone. We tell the story of how the people living there see themselves, their opportunities and future in places that are not necessarily reached by newly built roads. We were very interested in the peculiar split between the old and the new. We had a strange sense that something had ended, or was ending before our eyes, and the new had not begun for good. That the province is in a strange limbo.
"portretprowincji.pl" is a large documentary project recording the transformations taking place in small towns in the Polish province.
Jacenty Dędek Born in 1966 in Częstochowa, photographer, documentary filmmaker. Three-time scholarship recipient of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. He is most interested in ordinary things, happening on the margins of main events, but always close to people.