This photobook tells the story of Polish migration to South America, with a particular focus on Brazil and Argentina, which were the main points of destination. It merged from the desire to shed light on a little-known aspect of the colonization of the Americas: in Central Europe, the conquest of these new lands was the subject of veritable advertising campaigns that touted the «colonial adventure» as a means of upward social mobility, aimed at the most deprived populations, peasants and workers who had been relieved by successive wars. Their descendants tell the story of how, when they arrived, they set to work preparing for winter, without knowing that it would never arrive.
Working with historical and anthropological documents, maps and archival images, this proclaim aims to base itself on the oral transmission as raw material. We construct photographs from selected fragments extracted from this collective memory, producing a collaborative and poetic form of documentary, composed from the fragile material of the imaginary.
Photographs:
Katarzyna Wąsowska, Marianne Wasowska
Edition and sequencing:
Katarzyna Wąsowska, Marianne Wasowska, Gonzalo Golpe
Design:
Francesca Todde / Départ Pour l’Image
Texts authors:
Karolina Bielenin-Lenczowska, Francisco Medail, Katarzyna Wąsowska
Text corrections and redaction:
Anna Becker
Proof reading:
Peter Bruno
Image processing:
Krzysztof Krzysztofiak
Illustrations:
Karol Kołodziejczyk
Printed by
ARGRAF, Warszawa
Print Run: First edition 500 copies, June 2025
Published by Yogurt Editions
The project was financed from the Scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Young Poland 2024.