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Between Times ( Polish Stories ) 1990-2000

 

This project came from my connection with Marek Szczesny, a painter who was part of a group of émigré artists and intellectuals who had left Communist Poland, seeking creative and personal freedom abroad and emmigrated to Paris in 1978.  It was through the stories of his life, growing up during communism in Poland, the lives of those friends closest to him, stories of musicians and poets, his time  spent in the Tatras working in winter mountain rescue that  gave me some understanding of Poland under communism. They were extremely difficult times but the friendships and camaraderie created under this regime were strong and powerful. I began photographing in Kraków and later Łódź beginning in the early 90s which was a sort of middle period, a bridge between communism and capitalism in the way it affected peoples lives and relationships. They still had their strong connections to each other, but with the advent of capitalism, some of this interconnectedness was beginning to fray. Time was speeding up, and the acceleration meant that people soon would no longer have the same frame of reference for the passage of time.