I can get to know you

I can get to know you (a family secret)

My grandfather Jerzy Pokorowski died in 1995.
I was born in 1988.
I look through my grandfather’s slides in a small box illuminated by a single light bulb. The exhibition of my grandfather’s photographs is my personal Secret. It took the form of an installation that imitates my form of contact with his photographs.

I received the slides from my grandmother. For many years no one had taken them out of the box, looked through them or mentioned them. I received a gift from the past, a unique source for working with memory, a subtle and intimate possibility for contact with my grandfather and, at the same time, a chance to get to know the person he did not have time to tell me about or whose narrative I was too young to understand. Above all, these are beautiful photographs.

The selection and sequence of slides are my own decision. I examine the photographs in the context of family relationships when arranging and collating them. Decisions made many years ago and the mechanisms at work between family members at that time had – and still have – their consequences and influence on later generations. The contemplation of the sky over the desert, of smiling family portraits taken on excursions, is intertwined with the impression of tensions, silences, which recommend themselves to be revealed.

Grandfather worked in Africa, and although she could grandmother did not join him. The family continued to be separated on two continents in a rhythm of visits and meetings. It was a mutual, more or less conscious, escape from relationships. My work is based on the memories and speculations of those closest to me, my own observations as a child, and an analysis of the conclusions I drew at the time, seemingly considered to be the only correct ones.

The installation consists of five pylons standing next to each other with interchangeable slides. The narrative of the work is a process and is subject to changes in the display as more slides from the collection are discovered. It is not a completed project.
Through the photographs I can guess what was beautiful and worthy of immortalisation for my grandfather. In this way I can get to know him.

Secrets is a series consisting of more than ten artistic installations presented in the urban space of Gdańsk. Residents will have a chance to come across ceramic forms hidden in backyards, interventions on building facades, staircases or art on billboards. Inviting the audience to play, the location of the secrets will not be announced directly, but will be hinted at on Facebook and Instagram accounts of the City Culture Institute.

Among the invited artists are: Jakub Danilewicz, Ada Dobrzelecka, Marta Frej, Zuzanna Gadomska, Przemysław Garczyński, Joanna Grochocka, Karolina Kardas, Lucyna Kolendo, Agata Królak, Jacek Niegoda, Agata Nowosielska, Anna Reinert, Grażyna Rigall, Agata Roguziak, Maja Siemińska and Szczepan Troka, Eugenia Tynna, Adam Witkowski, Julita Wójcik.

Identification was prepared by Zuzanna Gadomska. Bogna Kociumbas is responsible for the photographic documentation and Kulczynski Filmlab is responsible for the filming. Music: Stendek and Jacek Prościński.

Work in progress.
Developed with Grupa Gdyby.
Produced by City Culture Institute


Gdańsk, Poland
2021