The environmental disaster on the Oder River continues for another month. The mass death of animals and the destruction of the river's ecosystem prompt questions about both the role of wildlife for humans and the effectiveness of public policies to protect the environment.
With the support of the European Climate Foundation, the Sputnik Photos collective is carrying out a project related to the situation on the Oder River.
Rafal Milach, Justyna Streichsbier, Michal Luczak, Adam Panczuk, Agnieszka Rayss and Karolina Gembara are collecting stories about the environmental disaster on the Oder River by working with journalists_women and activists_women.
We will try_to look at the Oder issue broadly, going beyond news narratives.
Follow the #ODRA project on Facebook and Instagram.
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Milena Soporowska: Jak do you see the role of a contemporary documentary_photographer?
Rafal Milach: The role of the creator_woman in the current socio-political context, in my opinion, is primarily associated with responsibility. I believe that as a photographer I have in my hands a tool that, properly used, has considerable potential for persuasion, and in coalition with other activities can shape the reality that surrounds us. Photography can then be interventionist, preventive or proactive, it can use documentary strategies, but not necessarily. As an artist, I try to be as socially useful as possible and translate the resources at my disposal, which in this case are mainly photography and some organizational skills, into involvement in current problems.
Why are you photographing the protests?
As a society, we have reached a critical point. The scale of tensions between authority and society, discrimination, violations of human rights and democratic principles has reached such a ceiling that the process of reformatting values has begun. A sizable part of the tensions manifests itself on the street. I consider the collection of documentation from these events important from the perspective of the present, but also of the years to come. This is an important moment for us in the formation of civil society. By documenting, I show solidarity and amplify the voice of the protesters, extend the field of protest and sustain the discourse around issues that do not end with the end of the demonstration.
As a keen observer and recorder of protestów you see any changes in the way the postulate is manifestedóin by their participantów_czki?
I feel that we have learned to protest. To mark our presence in public space. Thanks to the involvement of female artists and visual artists, protests have become malleable, and this in turn creates the potential to create carrying, symbolic images. Flags, banners, graphic signs, choreography and music make up the performance that plays out in front of our cameras. "The Funeral March for the Oder is a very important and necessary ritual that we should experience not only in activist groups, but as a whole society. Maybe this would allow us to think about the river and its entire ecosystem in a subjective rather than purely utilitarian way.
"Mourning March for the Oder River" passed along the Vistula boulevards in Warsaw on August 21. The protest was held for several days after thousands of dead fish and river animals floated down the Oder River as a result of water poisoning. Those participating in the march protested the systemic and uncontrolled discharge of sewage and toxins into Polish rivers, the regulation and concreting of banks and the construction of dams that destroy river ecosystems.
We are horrified and dismayed, angry and furious, grief-stricken and grief-stricken. Together with dozens of civic and nature organizations, with the support of people whoóThose who cannot look indifferently at the happening disastersę, we want to shout, silently. In spite of the uproar, in spite of the shouting at pointing blame, in spite of placating our own interestsóIn on the tragedy. We want to experience the mourning. Together.
Activists organizing the August "Mourning March for the Oder" in Warsaw wrote.
Rafal Milach- photographer, visual artist, activist and lecturer. Takes up themes concerning, systemic oppression and political and social tensions in the former Eastern Bloc region. Author of photographic publications that take a critical look at systems of control and strategies of protest. Professor at the Krzysztof Kieslowski Film School in Katowice. Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Magnum Foundation and European Cultural Foundation. Winner of the World Press Photo competition, finalist of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize and Passports of Polityka. Co-founder of collectives: Public Protest Archive and Sputnik Photos. He has had numerous exhibitions in Poland and around the world. His works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, CCA Ujazdowski Castle, ING Polish Art Foundation, among others. Associate member of the Magnum Photos agency.
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Milena Soporowska: You recently completed your "first river trip." Why did you want to physically travel that distance?
Justyna Streichsbier: I knew that while sailing, I could learn a lot - both about the boat, the river and myself. I think I couldn't have had a better guide than Michal Zygmunt, a sound artist, activist and river man, who had traveled the route a few months earlier. This journey is a great learning to let go.
I am not a person who makes decisions easily. In fact, I have a big problem with it. However, when it came to the boat, I had no doubts. I followed a few simple steps at the time: I bought it and got on it, and we were carried further by the river.
I need to experience the world physically. More than intellectually. Even the fact that I choose analog photography is, I think, a consequence of this. As if only what I can touch exists for me, although of course I experience things and situations that are difficult to call such. I needed something very simple and clear at a given moment. A pusher (a simple, traditional boat - ed. note) has a certain rawness and concreteness to it. I get in, start the engine, turn the rudder right- go left, turn the rudder left- go right. That's the simplicity I need at this point. No combinations. Nothing more.
During your trip, did you meet any people associated with the rivers whoóre you traversed? Any meeting in detailólnie memorable for you?
I just realized that I have most of the river-related people around me - including my parents, who can't imagine spring or summer without being on the Warta or Oder.
I myself have been involved for years with the Ship of Culture, which hosts the "Laboratory Cruise" documentary workshops. People close to me include Szymon Mizera, his brothers, Piotr Wręga and the entire crew, Piotr and Tomek Włoch, or the aforementioned Michal Zygmunt and the River People's University. People like Jacek and Iza Engel of the Save the Rivers Coalition I knew before. Likewise Ewa Drewniak or Marta Sitak, as well as Justyna Budzyn or Ania Kobyłka and other Lubuskie River Sisters I met during my trip. These are the experts I listen to, because they have knowledge that is simply worth hearing. Rysiek Matecki from Zatoni Dolna, on the other hand, is someone I've only just met. I also often hear about Slawek or Magda Bobryk from the 515 Association. There are a lot of these people.
What was the method of your work during the implementation of the material?
I took an analog camera, materials, film - everything I had, and I didn't have much. That was the moment when I spent everything on the boat and the trip. I was mainly focused on swimming and experiencing. In fact, I quite rarely took out my camera, besides, film has its limitations.
I took the camera to have a "certificate" of a past loss, but also a new beginning. To remember, not necessarily to show something somewhere. Sailing towards the Oder River, I no longer knew what I would find. At first, even before the apogee of the disaster, I wanted to photograph the carcasses. However, crossing the Vistula, it was hard not to see life. It was downright idyllic. At the same time, in addition to this fairy-tale scenery, I kept hearing Michal Zygmunt's phone conversations, in which the subject of the tragedy on the river came up.
In the end, I photographed Michael Sigismund himself and the boat, because that was the closest thing I had at the time. Entering the Oder River, I no longer experienced the images heard from conversations. There were no dead fish, no stench. In Widuchowa, together with Ewa Drewniak from the Lubuski Naturalists' Club, we found bags of fish remains. I made prints of the corpses on cyanotypes and some Polaroids - to preserve them, to remember them. Being on the river, I felt responsible for her. She gave me a lot, I would like to give her something back as well. I don't know in what form yet.
The story is simple. I bought a boat. A wooden push boat. For 3300 PLN. Just like the one Michal Zygmunt has, who was the first to enter the Oder River with a similar traditional river boat a few months earlier. It was when he invited me for a short cruise that I clearly felt I wanted one just like it. It smelled beautifully. Wood, varnish and the river. The boat - Czajka- because that's what I called her, signed with a gmer, was made by boatbuilder Dominik Wichman in Szamoty near Warsaw. Instead of transporting her by trailer, we launched her in the Czerniakowski harbor to reach the Oder River, the place where I come from, via the Vistula, the Brda, the Bydgoszcz Canal, the Notec and the Warta.
I lost my job, actually I've lost a lot lately, I think even myself in part, so what I gained was time that I could use either to think about life, to look for a job or to go on a boat. I chose the boat. And that was the only decision I had to make. The rest was decided by the river.
Justyna Streichsbier - Graduate of the Maritime Academy in Szczecin. She participated in the Sputnik Photos 2019/2020 Mentorship Program. student at the Academy of Art in Szczecin. Animator. Co-creates and coordinates projects in the field of animation and cultural education. Finalist of the 20th edition of Hestia's Artistic Journey (Atlas of Birds) and Wrocław's TIFF OPEN 2021 The medium of photography is used for two purposes: social engagement and personal observation. Since 2014, she has been working closely with the Ship of Culture.
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Milena Soporowska: co moved you the most in the attitude of the river lovers_women associated with the Oder tourist haven in Cigacice?
Karolina Gembara: First of all, Cigacice is a very friendly place. I felt very comfortable there from the very beginning, although I didn't know the community. I visited it for the first time two years ago with my student Justyna Streichsbier, who lives in Kostrzyn-on-Oder. The people associated with Cigacice on a daily basis - Szymon Mizera and his Ship of Culture, the artist Michal Zygmunt, or the Italian brothers, Piotr and Tomasz and their restaurant - are very friendly people and places, which is visible to the naked eye. Now, in a moment of crisis, they are not breaking down. They have long known what helps the river and what harms it. They need to be listened to. They hold meetings, lectures, talk to the local administration. I am very impressed by their knowledge and motivation.
What role does the river play in this community?do you?
A friend of mine who grew up in Zielona Gora remembers that Cigacice was such a first meeting place with the river. The Oder River bypasses cities and you have to go northeast, towards Sulechow, to meet the river. A narrow bridge with traffic lights and houses visible from a distance, built right on the bank, emphatically say: here is the river, you need to slow down, look around. Anyway, back in German times, Cigacice was appreciated precisely for these reasons. They were a small resort where one dropped in for a weekend from Berlin. These traditions died in a sense, and it was only through the efforts of a few people that the thought of creating a harbor and marina was revived to attract people again. The river gives jobs to people who cook at the restaurant, who organize workshops for kids on the barge, who operate the barges. It is - clean and wild - a condition for people to want to come, to eat, to swim. That's one dimension - mercantile, but those people wouldn't be there if they didn't love the Oder.
How do you personally perceive the disaster on the Oder River?
The Oder is the river of the region I come from, as is the Neisse. However, I never had any special relationship with water, as children we did not bathe in rivers. Student times were, of course, parties on the Oder River in Wroclaw. But it was also the nightmare of the 1997 floods, when the Nysa destroyed my parents' store. A few weeks ago I was on the Rhine in Basel and got a real shock - the river is so clean that people swim in the mainstream with waterproof backpacks, then go ashore, take out dry clothes and go to work. I regret that I never had such experiences, that no one taught me about the river, that it was never so friendly in my eyes that I was warned about it. I feel tremendously sorry for the entire ecosystem around the river, the animals, the fish that are suffering, I also feel sorry for the efforts of people like those in Cigacice who are working hard to restore that faith in the river, to share the passion that no one ever helped me to experience. For me, it is also another political disaster - the lies, tardiness, ineptitude and inconsistency towards the polluters, the ignorance of the Minister, who called this disaster "natural," and before that, the hunt for the guilty party, as if one entity could be pointed to and dealt with. It is also a social and economic disaster. And I know from Dr. Marta Sitek's lectures that it will be repeated.
A few days before the environmental disaster was revealed, the Oder tourist haven in Cigacice celebrated its 15th anniversary. Since its inception, it has gathered around it a tight-knit community of river lovers, environmentalists or restaurateurs. Today, when the future of the port is in question, they are trying to find solutions, educating, talking to local politicians. They are fighting for their river.
Photo 01: Dr. Marta Jermaczek-Sitak with her son Tymek, Cigacice, September 2022
quote: Is it safe to enter the river now? In addition to chemical contamination, there is bacteriological contamination in the river - there are still dead, decaying fish lying in it. It won't kill us right away, but I certainly won't let my children into the Oder River (Dr Marta Jermaczek-Sitak)
Photo 02: View from the barge at the tourist marina in Cigacice, September 2022
quote: The catastrophe that happened moved something in us. Suddenly we began to care about this river. I guess that's how it often is. Interest in the river increased. Was it necessary to have a catastrophe? Maybe sometimes it takes a bucket of cold water on the head to see what is happening around us. (Dr. Marta Jermaczek-Sitak)
Photo 03: Piotr Włoch (left) with his brother Tomasz, Cigacice, September 2022
quote: When we started 12 years ago, not a dog came here. I spent all my savings on building roundups. People were knocking their heads, but it turned out that it was possible to do something extraordinary here. I brought my brother, who runs a restaurant, we have contact with winemakers, we live in great friendships and support each other, because we realize how much depends on the river here. (Piotr Włoch)
Photo 04: Ewa Drewniak - environmentalist, educator, naturalist, activist of the Save the Rivers Coalition, works at the field station of the Club of Naturalists in Owczary
quote: A river is not only the water flowing through its bed, it is also its tributaries and catchment area. A river can be compared to a leaf. Its central nerve, is like the riverbed, the side nerves - like the tributaries, the leaf blade is the catchment area of the river. All this forms a whole and a system of dependencies. (Ewa Drewniak)
Photo 05: Cigacice, September 2022
quote: The river is too straightened, regulated, has few bends, oxbow lakes, overgrown banks, marshes - places where it could clean itself. It also has nowhere to flood - floodplains are being drained and houses are being built, where sooner or later the water will appear. We can't keep moving closer and closer to the river, we have to give it space to spill over when needed. (Ew Drewniak)
KarolinaGembara- photographer, researcher, activist, author of participatory projects with refugee and migrant people. Graduated in international relations and journalism, studied art history, photography and cultural studies. She is a graduate of the Sputnik Photos Mentorship Program and a doctoral student at the Kieslowski Film School. Member of Sputnik Photos and the Public Protest Archive, author of photographic publications, lecturer.
www.instagram.com/sputnikphotos
2 Komentarzy
Krzysztof Ligęza
Missing information: "Sponsored with funds from George Soros."
A pathetic circus....
Krzysztof Ligęza
Is there going to be a new installment, this time of smiling fish from the Oder, or did a bunch of minions not get the proper funding this time?