WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CATASTROPHE
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notes (2020 – 2024)
Notes from a time filled with uncertainty. A time of pause and rediscovering connections. A time of fear and experimentation, but also of hope for a better tomorrow.
Finally, a time of pandemic and war.
A time of sorrow and attempts to cope with death, as well as joy in anticipation of the new.
“What a Beautiful Catastrophe” is an ongoing project initiated in 2020. It consists of several chapters – photography, films, publications, installations, and sounds. Social themes intertwine with personal reflections and a record of the state of mind. Documentary elements blend with subjectivity, intimacy, and abstraction.
INTERFERENCES
Photographs taken during the period from March 15th to March 29th, 2020 (a typical recommended COVID-19 quarantine) using the principle of one photograph per day. The images depict places that are usually crowded, heavily frequented, or associated with freedom or the carefree nature of everyday life. The photos were taken while adhering to all safety procedures, restrictions, and limitations imposed on the person operating an unmanned aerial vehicle, as well as the restrictions caused by the epidemic threat.
MULTIMEDIA: Curved Reality, Window, What Matters Most, Even Yesterday’s Rolls
Presentation Format: projector, television, monitor
FESTIVAL
The 26th Pol’and’Rock Festival (known as Przystanek Woodstock from 1995 to 2017) has gone down in history. For the first time since its inception in 1995, the music event took place in a virtual space. Thousands of people who annually set their sights on traveling to Kostrzyn nad Odrą stayed home this year due to COVID-19. However, some determined regulars still made their way to the sandy Woodstock fields.
As it later turned out, this was the last Pol’and’Rock Festival in Kostrzyn.
RED ZONE
At the peak of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, politics took center stage. The Constitutional Tribunal announced a ruling concerning the tightening of abortion laws in Poland. Thousands of Polish women and men took to the streets to defend their dignity and their right to make decisions about their own lives.
FOREST
August 2021
You know… there is a forest that during the pandemic cleared my mind, provided respite, and allowed me to catch a breath of fresh air.
Today, there are spots on the trees.
Hundreds of spots.
The cuckoo’s call has been replaced by the sound of a chainsaw.
I guess we won’t see each other again.
The forest was.
FEELS LIKE W…
We live in restless times… It sounds clichéd, but we are increasingly experiencing the effects of successive crises—the climate crisis, social crisis, humanitarian crisis, and the one that compounds all the previously mentioned crises: the crisis caused by wars.
I take photographs with a camera equipped with night vision (hence the green, characteristic image). What’s important to me is that the photos are not digitally manipulated—they are, in a sense, a documentary record of associations, thoughts, and anxieties.
I aim to visually analyze how war affects us. What images are imprinted on our psyche and what they leave behind.
HOW IT WAS
Photographs taken before the outbreak of the pandemic and war
from 2013 to 2019.
How was it, then?
NOTHING INTERESTING – Publication
In response to the pandemic, numerous conspiracy theories emerged. As early as February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted a wave of disinformation, often referred to as an “infodemic.” This involves the spread of distorted information, ranging from conspiracy theories to so-called fake news.
Over several years of working in media, I generated information. With a camera, I documented, described, and tried to maintain objectivity. Was I successful? I don’t know. After the outbreak of the pandemic, I felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. Perhaps it was fear? I got on my bike. I discovered new places, began meeting new people. I took different photos. I avoided the tribal divisions that starkly adorn the landscape of social life. The ambiguous touchlessness of the times we live in temporarily receded.
The statistics in the publication should bring us back to reality. We cannot remain indifferent to what has happened and continues to happen. We live in an age of numbers—numbers we do not understand and that no longer move us. We look at it all and feel nothing.
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CATASTROPHE – Exhibition Series
So far, there have been four exhibitions of the “What a Beautiful Catastrophe” project: at Galeria Intymna in Katowice, at the Polish Theatre in Bydgoszcz (main exhibition during the international theatre festival PRAPREMIER), at Pix.house gallery in Poznań, and at the BWA gallery in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski.
