2021 — Silesia, Poland
About this series
In a small town in rural Poland, a photographer grapples with the distinct ordinariness of her town—and devises an atmospheric series that might grant her a means of escape.
Sometimes it seems to me that everything here is going to collapse. The houses, grey from soot, and the broken pavements threatening to fall into the mine corridors below.
I live in a small town in Silesia, a region in Central Europe that includes part of Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. At some point there might have been something interesting going on here, but it was so long ago that it has since been buried in memory, hidden from view. The town is neither pretty nor ugly. There is no heritage from previous generations, nor any hint of flair in the current ones. If not for the dead mine shafts protruding from below, my town might be located anywhere. Or perhaps it does exist elsewhere, here and there.
“Gdzieniegdzie” in Polish means “here and there.” But this word also has an equivalent in the Silesian dialect—”kajnikaj.” If we use the latter, the dialect allows it some specificity, some locality: my town and my story will become less “here and there” by virtue of their place in Silesia. This is an obvious form of taming reality, which allows us to build upon it and create a mythology of sorts.
When I look at the sky over the decaying town, and when I build rickety contraptions, I am trying to find a means to escape from the place I was born and raised—even though I know it’s a futile attempt.
Photographer: Kaja Rata
Nationality: Polish
Based in: Poland
Website: kajarata.com
Instagram: @mokra_voda
Kaja Rata is a Polish photographer based in Silesia district. In 2016 she finished Sputnik Mentorship Programme in Warsaw. In her works she is trying to balance between reality and documental fiction.
She has graduated University of Arts in Poznań (BA) and Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic (MA).
Finalist and winner of many talent shows in Poland and abroad e.g. Critical Mass Top 50 show – finalist – exhibition 2021, OFF Triennale Hamburg, exhibition in 2018, Lens Culture Emerging Talent Award.