8.11-29.12.2024
Opening: 8.11.2024, 7 p.m.
The exhibition will be presented until 29.12.2024
The Collections Room inaugurates the presentation of selected items from Gdańsk Gallery of Photography and the NOMUS department.
In the first exhibition, we present photographs of animals. The earliest such depictions date back to the beginnings of photography in 1839. But still, a question remains: why would old photo albums, in addition to elegant images of people, also contain portraits of animals? In some photographs, animals are subjects with the same rights as other members of the household, but in many they serve as tainted trophies (home decorations, hunting documentation) that are a marker of family status. In the photographic archives of countryside families, farm animals, cows and horses were both the main characters and a picturesque motif complementing the landscape. They were photographed while grazing, working in the fields and as goods sold at markets. Their suffering is often visible, sometimes shared with peasants.
In war photographs and those taken during the reconstruction of Gdańsk after 1945, working horses are present in the service of soldiers and builders. In souvenir photographs from the museum collection, companion animals include cats, dogs, rabbits, and domestic birds. Even if they are an addition to human figures, today we can assess what role, apart from the utilitarian one, they played. Did their existence build empathetic family relationships?
In her work, Olga Tokarczuk grants animals the status of a person. In the exhibition, we wonder whether similar changes in attitude towards animals are related to the change in the modern condition of ourselves, humans. Photography offers testimony to these transforming relationships.
Maja Bieńkowska, Małgorzata Taraszkiewicz-Zwolicka
15.12.2024 (Sunday) 13.00-13.30 - Guided tour of the exhibition in English
