Marta Michalowska

Edgeland Shelters, 2023-ongoing

This series looks at shelters within the contested space of the borderlands on the eastern edges of Poland / EU / NATO, juxtaposing makeshift military infrastructure against elements of the rural, riverside environment. 

Over the past two years, the border – the Bug River – has undergone transformation from a space resembling a nature reserve into a highly militarised zone with physical barriers and surveillance. There used to be no fences, no razor wire, no cameras, no guards, just pairs of border posts looked at each other from across the river ‘patrolled’ by dragonflies. 

Now, the border is marked by concertinas of razor wire and military patrols. And those that patrol the border in all seasons, in all weather, erect both professional and improvised spaces to keep warm and dry over their twelve-hour shifts. 

This series was taken using medical fluorographic X-ray film [Washi F] and a medium format camera [Mamiya RZ67]. The negatives were processed in two different developers [Bergger Berspeed and Adonal Rodinal] producing dramatically different results.