Locals

"Locals" is a project exploring the problem of population migration and the concept of borders. Usually we associate borders with the processes of human movement, but history presents us with the situations, when the borders "migrate" over populations. Coming form Belarus and being based in Poland, I witnessed the traumatic experience of the previous times, when about a third of the lands of pre-war Poland were annexed to the Soviet Union, and in return it received lands that were previously part of the German state. Forced relocation in peripheral territories mixed the lives of millions people of all the nationalities.

In the photographic projections I juxtapose and overlay archival images from territories that were previously considered a unity, but are now located on different sides of the border, creating a unique peripheral identity of the „locals". Although photo projections were made in different countries, locations, it is difficult to determine their exact sources. The borders are conditional and imposed, heaven and earth are one unity.

How the events described affected the life and identity of the people living in these areas? What problems did forced migration entail? What is the role of the place as a geographical point in shaping our identity, both individual and group? All those questions were topics of my visual investigation.

The trauma, nostalgia and love experienced by people during the process of searching for their new home, in turn, found a symbolic expression in the form of a patchwork quilt. Families both from Belarusian, Polish and Germans side provided me with their personal archives to work on the topic.

The current migration crisis that has ignited on the territory of Belarus, although of a different nature, has become another element in an endless problem when geographical, political maps become the guides of our life.