The road. Winter. Lack. Lack of everything that’s important. I try to think of the “road.” I can’t. I’m utterly exhausted. I’m only really going because of the weather. The prospect of wind, snow, and my flashes on the beach kept me awake. And also I’m scared of a few days of thinking only about Her, and here I’ll have the Baltic. My Baltic. Instead.
“Swell” is a story of a break-up and of unaccepted loneliness. About going back to the same places and memories that we can’t forget. At first it was supposed to be a documentary project about the Baltic Sea. So a plan was drawn up, the form was thought through, and the places to be visited were marked on the map. The photographs came about during trips together. The last joint photo was taken a little later—and a portrait on a negative ruined by the lab technician. The project no longer mattered, and the outings to the sea were now only an escape from daily life. Over a dozen colour “postcards” have survived from the first trips. They are the beginning of this story. There is no end yet. We’re about half-way.
Mateusz Sarello was born in 1978 in Warsaw. A Graduate from the Academy of Photography in Warsaw, he is a member of the Napo Images agency (Napo Mentor Program). He is also a member of Spoldzielnia Dokumentalna (Documentary Cooperative), and has worked as a curator’s assistant of the proFotografia Institute in Poznan. His awards and distinctions include the FotoWeekDC International Awards, the PDN Photo Annual, the Prix de la Photographie Paris, the International Photography Awards, the FotoVisura Grant and the International Photography Festival Organ Vida Prize. A finalist of the Lucie Foundation Scholarship and Grand Press Photo, he has exhibited at the Chobi Mela International Fesitval of Photography in Bangladesh and at the FotoWeekDC in Washington, the Museum of Municipal Engineering in Krakow (Photomonth in Krakow), the Karas Gallery in Zagreb (International Photography Festival Organ Vida), the Pauza Gallery in Krakow, the Museum of Printing in Warsaw, the Leica Gallery in Warsaw, the Obok ZPAF Gallery in Warsaw, the 2piR Gallery in Poznan, the Gallery of Photography in Dublin, the Gallery Nine in Belfast and Splashlight Studios in New York. Publication credits include Lens Culture, GUP Magazine, PDN – Photo District News, Blow Magazine, Here, Flip Magazine, 5klatek, Doc! Photo Magazine and Private Photo Review.
