Feature / Distant Place / Studio Vistula by Adam Panczuk
The Vistula bank is my photography studio. I invite Varsovians there to take their portraits, using the natural scenery as a backdrop. The models’ age, educational background and nationality are of no interest to me, like in a photographer’s studio when a client walks in. The photographer doesn’t know too much about him, and neither do I.
The Vistula in my works is a witness of the times I live in. People change, but it keeps flowing, and is a constant reference point.
Distant Place
Distant Place (2012) is a project by Sputnik Photos about the Vistula river in Warsaw. The Vistula in Warsaw is more strange than beautiful. A forest grows along its banks, in the center of the city, which is separated from the river by a highway. River traffic has been extinct for over twenty years. Next to the city, the Vistula is something of a reserve, an unpenetrated enclave. It is incredible how distant a place it is, even though it is in the center of the city. On the one hand, people are always trying to get here, but keep having to find the way. A magical place and asylum for some, to others it is a gutter, a dump, a realm of rejected people and discarded objects.
The effect of the project is an exhibition at the Copernicus Science Centre, made up of 20 large-format prints, as well as a book - a unique publication comprising 5 separate booklets contained in a single box. You can read more about the project here:
http://www.512.kopernik.org.pl/en_index.html
Photographers: Jan Brykczyński, Michał Łuczak, Rafał Milach, Adam Pańczuk and Agnieszka Rayss
Project curator: Barbara Stauss
Book design: Ania Nalecka / Tapir Book Design
Coordinator: Marzena Michałek
Client: Centrum Nauki Kopernik.
