Wojciech Wilczyk. (UN)VISIBLE MONUMENTS OF FREEDOM | an exhibition of photographic works

The exhibition (IN)VISIBLE MONUMENTS OF FREEDOM presents a visual typology of memorials to the abolition of serfdom in the form of crosses and chapels found and documented by Wojciech Wilczyk in 2020-2024. A meeting with the artist will be part of the festival vernissage.

The series includes 140 monuments from the former partitions – Austrian (Galicia), Russian (the Kingdom of Poland), Prussian (Silesia) – which are visible traces of the beginning of the end of feudalism on the territory of the modern Polish state. As these monuments bore inscriptions of gratitude to emperor Ferdinand I or tsar Alexander II, such inscriptions were often painted over with lime whitewash or removed, while the monuments themselves were dedicated secondarily to Tadeusz Kościuszko or to commemorate another anniversary of Poland’s regained independence (this practice continues to this day; the Serfs’ Cross in Prandocin-Iłły was dedicated to the memory of John Paul II in 2005).

The photographs are accompanied by a selection of instruments used to discipline people working on the farms (including replacement money, carbo sticks and manorial duties) from the museum’s collections.

In the summer of 2023, Magdalena Zych, together with Dorota Majkowska-Szajer and Justyna Matwijewicz from the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków, conducted field research in 14 villages where such monuments still exist. The team followed the echoes of village-manor relations, listening to opinions on contemporary labour relations, land ownership, sources of livelihood, directions and purposes of migration. Rafał Mazur recorded soundscapes. The research material, in the form of specially created soundtracks, reveals the contemporary realities of life in Bóbrka, Biedrzykowice, Bykowce, Dziurków, Goździelin, Iwanowice Włościańskie, Janowice, Korzenica, Krzczonowice, Maków, Nozdrzec, Ubieszyn, Ulucz-Hroszówka and Szczytniki.

At the exhibition, the local Łódź context resonates through a selection of sources from the archives of the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum in Łódź by Tomasz Romanowicz. A specially created soundtrack presents the memory of the last generation of female workers and farm laborers in juxtaposition with life in Łódź. The authors of the theatrical sound experience are: Lewis Gibson, Bryce Lease and Agnieszka Jakimiak. Halszka Lehman and Lena Schmischeiner provided the acting voice of the archive.

The exhibition presents the results of research on commemorations of the abolition of serfdom carried out by the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków.

Creators:

• Curatorial team: Adam Mazur, Tomasz Romanowicz, Wojciech Wilczyk, Magdalena Zych
• Organiser: InŁódź21 Instytucja kultury
• Audio track – field research: Dorota Majkowska-Szajer, Justyna Matwijewicz, Rafał Mazur, Magdalena Zych
• Audio track – archive material: Lewis Gibson, Agnieszka Jakimiak, Bryce Leace, Halszka Lehman, Lena Schmischeiner, Tomasz Romanowicz.
• Co-organisers: The Ethnographic Museum of Kraków, Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama – University of London
• Supporting institutions: Franciszek Kotula Ethnographic Museum in Rzeszów, State Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw

Wojciech Wilczyk (born 1961) is a Polish artist who for years has combined photography, poetry, essayism and art criticism in his work. A graduate of Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University, he made his debut as a photographer in 1988 and has been a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers since 1997. His documentary works, such as Black and White Silesia, The Innocent Eye Doesn’t Exist or Holy War, show the often vanishing elements of the post-industrial landscape and the complex historical memory of Poland. Wilczyk is also a respected curator and lecturer at the Academy of Photography in Krakow, and his work has received numerous awards, including the PHOTO BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014 award, and has been presented in exhibitions at the Atlas Sztuki Gallery and the CCA Ujazdowski Castle. He has published in Tygodnik Powszechny, Gazeta Wyborcza, Opcje, Obieg, Fototapeta and Fa-Art.