-
-
The Rafał Milach exhibition at Warsaw’s Studio Gallery can be seen as a double narrative. On one level Milach describes and arranges visual manifestations of public protests in Poland since 2016; on another level he reflects on his own participation as a grassroots activist. Rafał Milach (1978) is a photographer and visual artist. He is a co-founder of the Sputnik Photos collective and a Magnum Photos Associate Member. Milach recently founded the internet platform Archive of Public Protests with contributions from Agata Kubis, Adam Lach, Chris Niedenthal, Wojciech Radwański and Paweł Starzec. Its purpose is to document protests, demonstrations and marches, and the collection will eventually enter into the public domain. The Archive of Public Protests will be launched during the exhibition. One of the pieces presented is Seeding, a collaboration with photographer Karolina Gembara. It was inspired by the wave of demonstrations against restrictions on women’s rights in Poland throughout 2017 and 2018. Currently Rafał Milach and Maciej Pisuk are working on a graphic novel about a self-immolation that took place in Warsaw on October 19, 2017. Rafał Milach captures the street and events that unfold there. Oscillations depicts the emotions that emanate from the crowd: anger and enthusiasm, hope and despair. Milach also asks what change mass protests might bring about, and if it is possible at present to build a functioning community out of groups that act spontaneously and under the sway of emotion. Text by Dorota Jarecka
-
-
SEEDING Video 1:48’ Karolina Gembara & Rafał Milach © 2018 Performing: Vera Sipos On 23 March 2018, in a black protest organised by women for the third time, some of the participants of the Warsaw march fired smoke flares. Police intervened, the legal demonstration was stopped for a moment, but after a while women were released. Pictures of high poles of black, billowing smoke circled the media and were memorised as one of the visual representations of that afternoon. They also opened a space for discussion on the radicalisation of women’s movement.
There is no doubt that launching a flare in a public place belongs to the sphere of controversy. It is difficult, however, to find a more “visible” message that speaks about participants’ mood.
Smoke flare belongs to the wide arsenal of artefacts of public gatherings, it is an element of a specific “setting” of a socio-political event drawn from, among others, football stadiums. It is what makes the protest visible, next to banners, hangers, umbrellas or black clothes. Visibility, in turn, but also performativity, are a prerequisite for a protest in the media, gaining support or articulating postulates. These artefacts create a space of contestation and relations between participants of the movement. Finally – they protest because they are shaped by symbolic meanings and codes. But they are also susceptible to interceptions – the struggle for symbols can take place between participants of various groups.
The reasons behind launching the flares, were not just the desire to construct a strong media image, but also to draw attention to the inequality of citizens in the face of the law. March of nationalists on the Independence Day in Warsaw in 2018 was dominated by the smoke and fire of hundreds of flares with the passive attitude of the police. With this gesture, which was not up to the nationalists’ excesses, participants of the black protest showed the hypocrisy of authorities and its unequal reaction to the values carried on the banners.
At a time when the first Polish feminists fought for electoral rights for women, avant-garde artists broke with traditional cultural institutionalism, forcing a model of art close to everyday experience.
”Seeding” uses the shift between the two areas.
-
-
Nearly Every Rose (c) Rafał Milach 2019 Studio Gallery, Warsaw 2019
-
-
Archive of Public Protests posters accompaigning the Future of Culture Forum 2017
-
-
Nearly Every Rose on the Barriers in Front of the Parliament The pictures in the book were taken in Warsaw in July 2017 during public protests against the controversial judicial reform proposed by the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party. Initiated at the time, the makeover of the judiciary was finally completed by the Polish government in July 2018, strongly undermining the separation of powers in Poland. The photographic collection of the white roses that the protesters attached as symbols of non-violent resistance to the crowd-control barriers in front of the Parliament is banal and accidental. It echoes the simple, non-heroic gestures during the series of demonstrations in the summer of 2017. The white rose symbol was appropriated from anti-fascist student group called die Weisse Rose operating in 1940-ties in Munich, Third Reich.
-
-
Protest slogans attached to crowd control barriers around Polish Parliament building.
-
-
Police officers guarding the crowd control barriers in front of the Parliament
-
-
Archive of Public Protests installation view at the Studio Gallery, Warsaw ,Poland2019
-
-
Archive of Public Protests (c) Rafał Milach 2019
-
-
Archive of Public Protests (c) Rafał Milach 2019
-
-
Archive of Public Protests (c) Rafał Milach 2019
-
-
Animated Archive of Public Protests (c) Rafał Milach 2019
-
-
From the Series “The Man in the Street” dedicated to Piotr Szczęsny who in the gesture of protest self-immolated in front fo the Palace fo Culture back in 2018
-
-
From the Series “The Man in the Street” dedicated to Piotr Szczęsny who in the gesture of protest self-immolated in front fo the Palace of Culture back in 2018
-
-
From the Series “The Man in the Street” dedicated to Piotr Szczęsny who in the gesture of protest self-immolated in front fo the Palace of Culture back in 2018
-
-
From the Series “The Man in the Street” dedicated to Piotr Szczęsny who in the gesture of protest self-immolated in front fo the Palace of Culture back in 2018
-
-
From the Series “The Man in the Street” dedicated to Piotr Szczęsny who in the gesture of protest self-immolated in front fo the Palace of Culture back in 2018
-
-
Tears, Mural (c) Rafał Milach 2020 installation view IP Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany
-
-
Nearly Every Rose protest banner (c) Rafał Milach 2019
-
-
Archive of Public Protests drawings (c) Rafał Milach 2019
-
-
Tears, mural (c) Rafał Milach 2019and protest banners installation view Studio Gallery, Warsaw 2019
1/21
prev | next
all
info