The city of Łódź in Poland nobly celebrates photography during the festival dedicated to this art, organized by the city every June.
For the 2024 edition, the Łódź Photography Festival welcomes Polish and international artists selected by the organizers and the festival’s jury, which is composed of curators. Although the festival has ended, the exhibitions remain open at the Art Incubator, the epicenter of the festival, as well as in other galleries around the city.
For some artists, photography is an outlet where intimate history intertwines with pain. “The first poetic approach consists in going back to the origin. Namely: to suffering,” wrote Michel Houellebecq in To Stay Alive. Thus, while some, like the French writer, take up the pen as an outlet, others have chosen the universal language of the image.
An early summer Saturday evening at the opening of Grzegorz Wełnicki’s “No’am” exhibition.
A dense crowd gathers in the exhibition hall where the photographer displays about fifteen photos from his project. The speeches in Polish go on; the language is unfamiliar to me, yet when the artist speaks, the emotion of the gathered crowd is palpable. Reading the small explanatory sheet, one understands the significance of Grzegorz Wełnicki’s work on death. After losing his father, the photographer went through a long depressive period. This photographic project, which he has carried for years, is the culmination of his mourning. When the room empties, friends present the photographer with a bouquet of flowers. A great emotion is visible on his face, like a feeling of peace after years of suffering.
“Now is not the right time,” Peter Pflügler
Peter Pflügler is an Austrian photographer. Before becoming a photographer, he practiced various arts, including dance. His series of photographs, “Now is the time,” is the result of long personal and introspective work. When he was two years old, his father walked into the woods intending not to return. It was only as a young adult that Peter Pflügler learned about his father’s suicide attempt. Yet throughout his childhood, the artist’s body and subconscious were traumatized by this event. “Now is not the right time” is a revelation.
At the beginning of the project, the photographer chose to approach this heavy family history with some distance, a perspective that art allows. Peter Pflügler breaks this distance to fully embrace his subject. He films himself in the woods where his father once tried to leave. There, he practices the therapeutic method TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) aimed at externalizing all the emotions the body has stored following trauma. Supported throughout this project by his parents, Peter reconciled with his story.
“I Can’t Get Through The Chaos,” Michat Adamski
Michat Adamski is a photographer, though he is not exhibiting at the Łódź Photography Festival, he is selling photo books there, including his own, I Can’t Get Through The Chaos.
In 2012, his parents disappeared within a few months of each other, after being ill. Michat Adamski photographed these last moments spent with them, focusing particularly on the unspoken. So, how does one photograph silences? The looks and gestures photographed by Adamski are filled with love and humanity. Here, too, photography becomes a journey toward accepting grief.
A Look Back at the Fotofestiwal
Fotofestiwal
June 13-23, 2024
https://fotofestiwal.com/2024/en/
