Haunting Legacies: Family and Archival Photographs in Aleksandra Garlicka’s Taxonomy of Polish Society (1985–95)

Abstract

This article expands knowledge about photography's participation in pro-democratic socio-political processes in the years leading to the demise of the communist Polish People's Republic and during the creation of the post-communist Third Republic of Poland. Taking particular interest in uses of non-artistic photographs in the country's public cultural institutions of the late communist and early post-communist periods alike, we first introduce the work of historian and curator Aleksandra Garlicka and we then analyze five exhibitions that she organized between 1985 and 1995. In all of these, Garlicka employed archival photographs to access histories of Polish society that the communist state had striven to repress. Yet she also called on members of the public to share with her their family photographs in order to deepen the scope of her endeavor. Drawing on archival sources, interviews, and historical Polish literature, we demonstrate how Garlicka deployed these photographs to promote political change in one of Poland's most turbulent historical moments of the twentieth century. Also considering the reception and impact of her curated shows, we argue that, in Garlicka's hands, the display of photographs in Poland's dominant exhibition spaces challenged communist ideology and helped the Poles to come to terms with its legacies.