For several years now I have been passionately observing photographers dealing with the territory. Sometimes they obsessively reproduce or imitate reality in an objective, almost mannerist way. Other times they reveal the hidden face, the margins, the vernacular, the anonymous pages. Other authors try to exalt their emotional sides through a rather expressionist attitude. The forms of representation of the territory are multiple, sometimes trespassing in symbolism, in abstraction, and in other currents, epiphanies, and expressive manifestations. This is basically an essential character of post-modernity in which languages break down and recompose, mixing, joining, overlapping. From the realist documentary to the most eclectic and conceptual forms, the range of possible visual translations of the territory is varied and stimulating.
Paweł Jaśkiewicz started his adventure with photography when he was 13. At the time he had found his father’s old Zenit camera and began to play with it. Shooting black and white and becoming curious in the technical aspect of photography. Later he took a photography course after-school class and decided to build a darkroom in his bathroom. Not having had enough of it he then attended a one-year-long advanced photography course and had his first exhibition with other mates. Soon it was clear that what he wanted was to enter the University of Arts, and so it happened. Until today Mamiya 7 remains his favorite camera. Both its format and types. Still, he is aware of the rising price of the negatives. «So long as I can afford to, I will work this way».
When he started photographing Paweł was fascinated with the classics like Jeff Wall, Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, Joel Sternfeld, Paul Graham. He was also into Magnum Photos agency where he came across Alec Soth and Antonie d’Agata, who had a huge impact on him. The Düsseldorf School of Photography also influenced his work deeply. Among the current photographers whose work he finds inspiring he mentioned us Ricardo Cases, Martin Kollar, Mårten Lange, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Max Pinckers, Todd Hido, Rafał Milach, Michał Łuczak, Kuba Dąbrowski, Paweł Starzec, Michał Sierakowski, Dominika Gesicka.
His photographic work focuses on places. Not merely descriptively, Paweł is interested in their recontextualization, in adding his own meanings, in enhancing perceived elements, in emphasizing accidents. Somehow it's about the immaterial side of places. «My way is never planned. I mostly rely on my intuition while I wander around the genius loci of the space». The process becomes fundamental, an integral part of his narrative epiphany. He explores the city especially in its margins, in the suburbs, moving away from what is already known. «This is what my photographic creativity is all about, constantly exploring and discovering». His words are explicit and well address his intentions. Somehow he tries to reveal the places from the inside, freeing them from prejudice, scratching away the obvious meanings.
In his recent project 'Zenith', the urban landscape is almost destructured and taken through gestures of images to an imaginary alphabet. The city disappears in its geography to reappear in its almost anonymous and abstract essence. The landscape turns into a pattern while reflecting an ideal vision, an objective order. The reference to the theory of Marc Auge is strong. «Zenith is a body of work, collecting topographic view on various non-places». Marc Auge coined the "non-place" to describe places without enough significance to be thought of as proper places. Still, Paweł points out that real perception comes out of the empirical experience, filtered through a subjective view. Thus as man alters the landscape, it becomes an imprint of the perception of both the creator and the user, thus being evidence of their actions and intentions that will eventually last. «Even when in perfect order from up above (the Zenith, all places are subjected to constant reformulation and recontextualization. And this is the subject of this story». Paweł is planning to complete this project during the year and he is looking forward to publishing it. So do we... He is also working on a new series 'Two ways to home', an attempt to document the daily journey scapes between his hometown and the city center. Again looking for his personal traces in it.
According to Paweł, the Polish photography scene is developing very quickly. Polish photographers are beginning to be better known abroad. As the Sputnik Photos collective (we talked about them a few years ago). There is also more space and possibilities for presenting photography, somehow people have become more open to the medium. Photo festivals are booming in cities like Łódź, Kraków, and Wrocław.
Paweł also asserts that it’s great how social media has evolved over the past years. He appreciates using social networking, such as Instagram and Facebook, to share his work, or connecting to the many online magazines that have appeared. So as many others he lives within the paradox of using the analog camera but showing pictures digitally. «The process of making photos is the most important to me, I don’t look at the photos on the screen and I don’t make many frames of the same view». Usually, he takes only one picture per subject. It is risky but this is his way of working.
Recently Paweł was in Stockholm and visited the photography museum Fotografiska. The building and the show space made an excellent impression on him, and so the exhibitions by Ellen von Unwerth, Christian Tagliavini, Anna Claréns, and Hans Strand.
© Paweł Jaśkiewicz from the series 'Zenith'
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