Michal Betta

Over the past century and into the current one, the southwest of Poland went through waves of border shifts, forced migration and socioeconomic transformations. Once within the German borders, later shaped by decades of communist rule, and a transition into market economy, the region now bears spatial, material residues of each phase. Growing up, imprints of the tangled history peeked through the urban landscape, cultivated by its neglect. I employ my own photography and footage by decay-and-mystery-chasing urban explorers to amplify the quiet resonance of the past, persisting through mundane and spontaneous interactions. Project explores the ever-subjective nature of remembering and making sense of the tensions between the foreignness and familiarity of one’s surroundings. Photographs are transformed to form provisional structures, similarly how perceptions and personal understandings of the past always remain a subjective construction(site).