Krzysztof Zieliński

Curator: Joanna Zielińska

Krzysztof Zieliński’s new series Millennium School comprises 44 photographs taken in Primary School No. 3 in Wąbrzeźno, the artist’s hometown already featured in his earlier photographic projects. Millennium School constitutes a nostalgic trip through the land of childhood, a journey in memory. However, the place that the artist visits now is different from what he remembers, as though it had been radically though ineptly rejuvenated. The confrontation of memories with the present day has brought about a series of colour photographs, slightly unreal and suffused with tenderness. “My former teacher cried when she saw these pictures”, Zieliński texted from Wąbrzeźno.

A sentimental retrospective is only one of possible interpretations of the series. The title of the exhibition refers directly to historical background of the days when the artist was growing up. The erection of so-called “Millennium Schools” followed a 1960s propaganda programme by Władysław Gomułka, the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party. The schools were supposed to be the Party’s gift to the Polish nation for the occasion of the thousandth anniversary of Poland’s statehood as well as a reaction to church anniversary celebrations of the baptism of Poland. Apart from spacious gyms, some of the buildings also had underground shelters. The artist started school in 1981, shortly before the introduction of the Martial Law, and finished it in 1989, shortly after the Round Table Talks. In Millennium School, the artist’s childhood, definitely belonging to the past, permeates the slightly refined present of the Polish sticks.

The Millennium School exhibition will feature a radio play for children, constituting an audio guide to the show. Each of the presented works will be commented on, sometimes in a surprising or dreamlike way. The play will have a loose, fable-like plot focusing on school matters, photography and art. The story will be read by Dominika Biernat, an actress of the Teatr Polski in Bydgoszcz, and edited by Grzegorz Wierzchowski, the prize winner of the contest Jednominutówki (one-minutes) held by the Nadbałtyckie Centrum Kultury and The One Minutes Foundation in 2008.

Krzysztof Zieliński was born in Wąbrzeźno in the north of Poland in 1974. He left his hometown at the age of 18 and has never come back there to stay but the town, revisiting it and confronting the past with the presence have dominated his artistic activity so far. The artist lived away from his hometown in the 1990s, the period of massive social and economic transformation. The series Hometown was created from 2000 to 2003. Two following projects, Random Pleasures (2002-2005) and Seens (2006-2007) drew upon the artist’s private experiences – the documentary gave in to emotions. Millennium School (2007) combines the two approaches: the objective documentary character of Hometown and the emotional intensity of Random Pleasures. Zieliński graduated from the prestigious Department of Photography at the FAMU in Prague. He debuted in Poland in Galeria Zderzak in Kraków in 2001. He participated in numerous solo and group and exhibitions both in Poland and abroad, including the 26th Sao Paulo Biennial and a solo exhibition in Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw, both in 2004.

The photographs from the Millennium School cycle belong to the collection of the Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Toruń.