East /i:st/ noun, 2023-24
This series looks at the Bug River, the last major unregulated river on the European continent and the border between Poland and Ukraine, and Poland and Belarus – the questionable line of division between the East and the West in Europe. In recent years, amid the geopolitical crisis, the border – the Bug – has undergone transformation from a place resembling a nature reserve patrolled by dragonflies into a militarised zone marked by fences and concertinas of razor wire.
The images were taken using a medium format camera and paper-based negatives. The negatives on Japanese washi paper I hand-process are very fragile, and create textured, gritty, elusive images that resemble archival imagery, eroded by years of imperfect storage conditions. The intention for the series is to play with the idea of evidence and time, questioning what is contemporary, what is historical, and what ‘information’ photographs can provide.
Marta Michalowska 
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