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Documentary

Wawrzyniec Kolbusz

Photographer

Wawrzyniec Kolbusz

From The Series - Demerger

Sudan’s split, forced by China and USA, strongly impacts ecology and
culture. North lost oil revenues and desperately looks for hydropower.
Dams and lakes will occupy the only fertile agriculture belt along
the Nile, causing resettlement of people, whose protests are bloodily
suppressed. Government and farmers, who race for land before water
floods, are joined by gold seekers and archaeologists. High gold
prices attract many people, who transform desert into open pit mine.
Archaeologists, attracted by a system allowing to take home part of
excavated artifacts, are coming to rescue traces of past. They are seen
as vanguard of the dam construction, their work triggers protests. All
of them co-exist, but refer to different values and narrations. Archeologist
look into the past to confirm their importance, farmers stick to
present to keep the status quo, government and construction companies,
awaits future to cash investment. The same space is viewed from
different time dimensions.

Wawrzyniec Kolbusz

In his works, he engages with the topics of simulation, substitution and reference as applied to the phenomenon of how the imagery itself tantalises the viewer. His artistic interest revolves around the hidden or generally unrealised patterns of social, cultural and political behaviour, approached from the conceptual angle. He often uses the aesthetics of minimalistic language to communicate. His works are marked by ambiguity and the relationship between medium and politics. Lives and works in Warsaw.