One of the unexpected emails of this week:
My name is Roman Butym, I am a Ukrainian photographer, located in Cracow city of Poland.
Together with the graphic designer of the National Museum of Cracow, we created a photo project about the overproduction of disposable and eco-friendly items.
The presented works are part of a large project consisting of 23 photos.
Created by photographer Roman Butym and Pavlo Kyryk, retoucher of the National Museum in Krakow.
For three months we went to the city dumps and took photos. At first without a specific purpose, but rather for fun. Later, they began to create harmonious compositions from garbage. Eventually, each shoot became a performance.
There is a whole story connected with each photo. We talked to the homeless and bought them beer. They carried a broken TV and a stinking carpet, passing grandparents returning from Sunday Mass at the church. They searched all day for the necessary chair and took it from the other end of the city by night bus.
We tried to document people’s reactions. Some rec us to stories, some were laughing, several people threatened to call the police. But most people pretended not to see us.
Garbage is associated with something unpleasant and disgusting. We try not to notice him. It always stays outside the camera frame, but it exists.
One may see in this photo project a concern about the one-time nature of our things and how it affects the environment. Someone else will consider the issue of homeless people. Someone else is thinking about the existential emptiness of capitalism. And there will be those who just see a fool in the dump.
Roman Butym
