Ukrainian photographers Elena Subach and Viacheslav Poliakov have been working together since 2012. Their City of Gardens focuses on the Polish city of Katowice, once an important region for coal mining and industrial steel production. Today, Katowice has been rebranded a “city of gardens” following a transformation aimed at the cultural development of the region. Situated within the historic Silesia region, most of which lies along south-west Poland’s Oder River, Katowice retains a strong sense of local identity and tradition. Against a backdrop of globalisation and fears of an increasing consumerist uniformity, City of Gardens reflects a search for a unique Polish aesthetic that lies on the border between East and West. [...]
Elena: I get my inspiration from stories. If a place or an event has a story attached to it that people want to tell, or that people can listen to until they forget what they were talking about in the first place — that’s how you know it might work for a project. We chose Silesia, where we shot our Polish project, because of the wonderful stories our friend told about it. She spent her childhood there and was able to convince us that not only was it where Thomas Mann wrote The Magic Mountain, even the doves were a brighter shade of white there. [...]
Elena: On the whole, social networks have totally devalued image-making. And that’s an important step, because now you really have to ask yourself what you’re doing and why. They are also an invaluable educational resource for those who don’t live in big cities: if it wasn’t for the internet, we never would have discovered the photography we love, or not to this extent.
No comments:
Post a Comment