The project is a series of photographs from the period of mourning after the death of my father, which I spent during a student exchange in Macerata, Italy, as well as at times in my family home. My stay in Italy turned out to be a Promised Land for my psyche, because nothing there reminded me of my dad. The Italian photographs are blurred, often with no clear subject. They are an image of my drifting. The photographs from my brief visits home (coming for the funeral, Christmas) are sharply focused, just like my psyche, which switched into a defensive mode during those visits—anything just not to cry.
I chose to work with photographs taken on my phone, because they are simply a record of what I truly wanted to say.
The project is a series of photographs from the period of mourning after the death of my father, which I spent during a student exchange in Macerata, Italy, as well as at times in my family home. My stay in Italy turned out to be a Promised Land for my psyche, because nothing there reminded me of my dad. The Italian photographs are blurred, often with no clear subject. They are an image of my drifting. The photographs from my brief visits home (coming for the funeral, Christmas) are sharply focused, just like my psyche, which switched into a defensive mode during those visits—anything just not to cry.
I chose to work with photographs taken on my phone, because they are simply a record of what I truly wanted to say.
Date:
April 2025
Curator:
dr Małgorzata Markiewicz
Silent murmurs of the night, and behind the door a storm. I don’t know when it arrives. I am somewhere else. I squeeze my eyelids tight and clutch the blanket at my wrists. It wraps me like a tight cocoon. Am I asleep? The phone rings. It’s 6:30 a.m. I see lights—do you? You left at 4 in the morning. I hear nothing. I woke up because it really happened. Maybe. Then suddenly I was passing through airport gates. I was already in Poland. Maybe you went on vacation, because you weren’t in your room. I made a few drawings of you lying in a coffin. Then again I was standing at the check-in desk. Two hours and Rome Fiumicino. Five hours by Flixbus and Macerata. Italy, my Promised Land, where you never were. And I could send you postcards with greetings.
The exhibition also includes a zine—a set of unsent postcards to my dad. It contains fragments of poems, photographs, drawings, leaflets, notes, and a short story inspired by a tale he once told. It is an intimate attempt at a conversation with someone who can no longer reply.
