Mikołaj Długosz is a pho­tog­ra­pher and vi­sual artist from Poland who works mainly with archives and found ma­te­ri­als. His artist pro­ject “Leisure Time and Other Sto­ries” in­cludes pho­tographs and video records from pri­vate col­lec­tions and state archives of Poland: the Na­tional Dig­i­tal Archives and Mu­seum of Pho­tog­ra­phy — pre­sented to the broad pub­lic for the first time with the sup­port of Pol­ish In­sti­tute in Saint Pe­ters­burg. The pro­ject is part of the Pol­ish In­sti­tute’s cul­tural pro­gram ded­i­cated to the 100th an­niver­sary of Poland re­gain­ing its in­de­pen­dence.

The ex­hi­bi­tion will pre­sent pro­fes­sional color pho­tographs de­pict­ing Pol­ish peo­ple at hol­i­day camps, pub­lic swim­ming pools, in parks of cul­ture and recre­ation of post-war Poland, found by Mikołaj Długosz in state archives, as well as am­a­teur pho­tographs that the au­thor had re­ceived as gifts or pur­chased at flea mar­kets. The artist pieces to­gether frag­ments of the past like a jig­saw puz­zle, re­con­struct­ing a com­plete pic­ture of life in Poland after the Sec­ond World War. His at­ten­tion is fo­cused on the leisure time of com­mon Pol­ish peo­ple. What did they use to enjoy doing in their spare time? Where did they use to go after work? Where did they use to spend their hol­i­days? Pho­tographs from pri­vate archives con­vey peo­ple’s moods, pro­vid­ing an ide­ol­ogy-free glimpse into the lives of their friends and fam­i­lies. Of­fi­cial pho­tographs, on the con­trary, were di­rected by strict in­struc­tions, where and how to shoot. We are faced with two dif­fer­ent worlds: a utopia of the So­viet era ver­sus the life of real peo­ple, filled with events and emo­tions.

The pro­ject “Leisure Time and Other Sto­ries” is a story that leaves many things un­told, just like human his­tory. Many pho­tographs are im­pos­si­ble to at­tribute, al­though Mikołaj Długosz man­aged to de­ter­mine some dates and lo­ca­tions and even made up sto­ries be­hind some of the shots. Of­fi­cial pho­tographs have a pre­cise at­tri­bu­tion. It was im­por­tant for the au­thor to show that his­tory is not just clam­orous facts and global-scale events, but also the life of com­mon peo­ple, their habits and daily rou­tines. In the spot­light of the ex­hi­bi­tion stands an or­di­nary per­son with their own needs.