Association of Documentalists 'The Road'
The Association was created by and is a platform of cooperation for photographers who started their careers in the socialist times. They wanted to preserve and promote the legacy of Polish journalists and photographers who documented the social, cultural, and political reality, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. The members of the Association "The Road" decided to run an independent organisation aiming to display their works which have not been presented to open public before.
The legacy of photographers associated in "The Road" is very ambiguous. On one hand, it is a part of visual representation of reality presented in the official and widely distributed press. On the other hand, a part of every photographic cycle was not displayed as it broke the acceptable honesty and aesthetics of socialist media. In a way, photographers acted in a two-fold manner: they documented the reality of visited areas and social milieus, but were not able to show everything they wanted to. As a strategy some of them chose to "do their job", even with the bitter awareness that part of their photographs will not be displayed publicly due to censorship. This can be interpreted as a resistance and a way to preserve their freedom and dignity. It was also a part of opposition to document the reality in the socialism, bearing in mind that a part of those will not be available to public. In the same time, the activities of photographers show that the lines between openly expressed opposition, accommodation, and subjection are often blurred when it comes to post-factum interpretations.
References
Anderman, Hanna, interview by Gospodarczyk, Hanna , October 10, 2016. COURAGE Registry Oral History Collection
Last edited on: 2017-11-06 21:07:36