This project explores Polish migration to South American countries during the partitions of Poland in the 19th century and the interwar period. We focus on Brazil and Argentina, as these countries were the most popular destinations for migrants, and today they host the largest populations of people of Polish origin on the continent.

Those who migrated overseas mostly came from rural areas of Polish territories, which at the time were divided between Prussia, Russia, and Austro-Hungary. They were hungry for land and for the opportunity to work for themselves and their families instead of serving landlords.

The colonization pursued by Central European countries took the form of an advertising campaign. Its aim was to occupy large areas of land in order to draw, not state, but individual benefits, pretending that this land was not inhabited by native populations. The increased migration to Brazil was also related to the lack of workforce that the country experienced after the abolition of slavery and the implementation of the government project of making Brazil “white.” This migration policy strongly influenced the way migrants defined themselves and created relationships with the new land and those that inhabited it.

Using our own photos, archival documents, and family albums, we want to create a multi-layered visual story. On the one hand, we gather stories based on the collective memory of the Polish community about the country of origin and the beginnings of settlement in the new homeland, which were mainly the issues we focused on in the first part of the project. On the other hand, we focus on the creolization and mixing of cultures and observe how the Slavic background has interlaced with the South American context, creating a concept of identity based on reconstruction, fiction, and fantasy.

We are two cousin photographers from France and Poland. Like many Polish families, our own has been shaped by migration and dispersed across the world. This project emerged from a desire to reconstruct the narrative of Polish migration, especially in the context of the strong anti immigration movement in Poland around 2015, and from a more personal search for ways to define identity beyond national frameworks.