Objects: Methods of documenting social change

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this article is to show how photography evidenced social changes in Polish history between 1959 and 2016. It focuses on the problem of documenting average items instead of photo reportage. It presents the pictures created in a variety of political realities: including the communist period in Poland and the years after 1989. By presenting projects of artists Władysław Hasior and Zbigniew Dłubak two different photographic practitioners work are shown. They both were able to see and document changes in the political reality of their time. After the fall of Communism the photographers draw attention to the documentation of ‘neutral’ objects once again. Polish New Documentarists continued earlier actions, but also created their work in the changed realities of the period. They practice what Edouard Pontremoli called ‘the aesthetic of dullness’(Pontremoli: 2006, 162). This article discusses how seemingly objective photographs become a part of the evidence of historical events.