Engaged Photography or the Creation of the Myth of Sociological Photography in the People’s Republic of Poland? | The Art of Photography | Lecture

For a variety of reasons, primarily historical in nature, the term “socially engaged photography” was absent from the official history of Polish photography prior to 1989 for a long time. It is true that images depicting social inequalities were already being created in the 19th century, such as Walerian Twardzicki’s ethnographic portraits of Warsaw’s trades, but during the communist era, the subject of poverty and social inequality was taboo, and the dissemination of such photographs was usually blocked by censorship.

During the May lecture, we will examine the evolution of this genre in Poland. We will go back to the 1930s, when Jerzy Benedykt Dorys documented the back alleys of Kazimierz Dolny, and photographers from Polesie created images that, for their time, had to wait until the 1980s to be widely circulated. One of the key figures in the second half of the 20th century was Andrzej Baturo—a photojournalist associated with the Warsaw scene and photographers collaborating with the weekly magazines “Na Przełaj,” “Razem,” and “itd.” It was he who, in November 1980, during the short-lived “Solidarity carnival,” organized the First National Review of Sociological Photography, which the censors shut down after just one week due to its overly assertive creative stance.

Together with Stanisław Jasiński, we will also reflect on the meaning of the term “sociological photography,” coined by Urszula Czartoryska, particularly in the context of Zofia Rydet’s legendary series “Sociological Record.” The meeting will conclude with a reflection on the present: is today’s “street photo” a continuation of that former mission? What themes do today’s documentary photographers tackle, and what remains taboo?

The lecture will be led by Stanisław Jasiński—photographer, photography instructor, and member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers. He is an expert on the history of photography and a collector of vintage cameras and other artifacts related to this art form.