The Sound of Two Songs. The Melody of Two Songs. Poland 2004-2009
Author: Power Mark
Publisher: Photoworks 2010
Cover: hard cloth.
Condition: very good, 168 pages of album format.
Notes: none.
This album is a record of a love affair, or rather an emotional connection that has no logical explanation. I have no Polish roots or personal history connected to this country that I wish to explore or explain. And yet I felt the need to return there again and again. What is the reason for this?
I know that photography has a long and not very edifying history of chasing the exotic. Thus, I remain suspicious of people who claim that in order to understand a foreign country, it is enough to passively spend a sufficient amount of time in it. In my view, Poland is precisely an exotic country. This fascinates and disturbs me at the same time - because the fact that I chose for a photography project a place I perceive in such a way contradicts the criteria I usually use. What sense does it actually make? Can an outsider say something about someone's homeland that its inhabitants don't already know?
Poland is a beautiful country. Poland is an ugly country. Its ugliness can be maturingly beautiful. Its beauty, or the sights we may like, can be fundamentally unsightly. Poland is a country brimming with visual contradictions. One can feel here as if one is listening to several tunes at once and hearing nothing clearly. In music, I think this is called counterpoint. Theeffects are strangely mesmerizing. Mark Power (from the Introduction)
Text: Gerry Bagder, Wojciech Nowicki and Marek Bieńczyk