Sławomir Brzoska, [A Year of a Wandering Life], 2 vols., Uniwersytet Artystyczny, Poznań 2017-2019

Book review

Experience of the cultural route in the space of the tourist landscape

Cultural routes present the values or elements of cultural heritage. They have been permanently inscribed in the landscape of Poland and Europe, thanks to their potential, in the context of historical memory, protection of tangible and intangible heritage, education, and tourism. They are tools for popularizing and bringing out the ethos and identity of the inhabitants. In the context of the development of cultural tourism and the introduction of new trails to the tourist landscape, it is worth considering the role of the experiences acquired by travelers through overcoming the subsequent stages of the cultural route. Participation in activities prepared by trail organizers plays an important role in enabling visitors and natives to learn about the heritage of a given area or to take root in the traditions of a region or nation. The analysis is based on research concerning the tourist landscape, cultural routes, and the author’s own experiences.

Extracting limestone: How to interpret the city through ammonites and belemnites

The paper analyzes the presence of the remains of ammonites and belemnites in the stones used to build the elevations of houses in modern Polish cities. The process of aestheticizing buildings is the reason for fossilized cephalopods being moved from the natural environment into urban space. I consider whether the use of such materials leads merely to making the buildings look more attractive or if this process provides an opportunity to interpret these buildings in an alternative way, which goes beyond aesthetic categories and is related to the fact that the fossils have been moved from the natural world into the cultural sphere. The limestone elements of architecture also allow one to look at the city as a unique museum of cultural and natural history.

Green Wrocław: Urban narratives of three post-war generations of Wrocław’s inhabitants

This study is an invitation to reflect on issues that fall within the area of collective memory, an area that awaits further in-depth analysis. More specifically, this article is a proposal of a broader study on cultural landscape and places of memory than that which is dominant in the sociological literature. In particular, I examine the relationship between the inhabitants of the Polish “Western Lands” and the material German heritage of the cities in which they happen to live. I mainly focus on the relation between socially constructed memory and greenery—a “negligible” part of the space of human life. As I demonstrate in the article, the “green” narrations about Wrocław created after World War II are lasting and are still present in the stories of city’s inhabitants today.

“It’s scary here.” Haunted landscape as a research tool to look into post-expulsion landscapes

The article deals with the idea of “haunted landscape” as a research tool in analyzing post-expulsion landscapes. I propose a new perspective on analyzing narrations concerning expulsion and resettlements of lands where a drastic demographic change took place. I use existing research connected with the idea of Jacques Derrida’s hauntology, as well as other analytical sources dealing with folktales of different regions. As material for analysis, I propose various records from ethnographic research conducted in the Czechoslovak borderlands, stored at the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, concerning the space of a “traditional house” and the new settlers’ views on their new home.

Beneath the surface: On the significance of the underground and underwater landscapes in selected documentaries by Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog’s films grow out of landscapes. The frames opening his works very often present landscapes whose role goes beyond illustrative or informative functions. Analyzing films such as Encounters at the End of the World, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Into the Inferno, the text reconstructs the meanings inscribed in Herzog’s underground and underwater landscapes. The journey beneath the surface of spaces dominated by nature usually constitutes an equivalent of the journey into culture in the director’s works. In a sense, they are films laced with reflection about experiencing landscapes. What is more, Herzog undertakes his reflections in the realm of documentary cinema, which is firmly entangled with the category of truth. Entering a landscape is therefore a way of reaching truth for the director—however, not objective but “poetic” and “ecstatic” truth, which, according to the creator, has a much more significant quality than mundane facts.

Rok wędrującego życia [A Year of a Wandering Life], 2017—2019

A photo essay by Sławomir Brzoska based on his book Rok wędrującego życia, Uniwersytet Artystyczny, Poznań 2017-2019.

Urban landscape as biographical experience: Pre-war Lublin in the oral testimonies of its inhabitants

For several hundred years, Lublin has developed as a multiethnic city. As a result of World War II and the destruction of the local Jewish community, its urban structure and its cultural landscape were significantly altered. The image of pre-war Lublin emerging from archival documents, pictures, newspaper articles, and individual memories is multilayered. Studies of the oral testimonies of local inhabitants reveal the deeply sensory and cultural components of spatial experiences characteristic of the cultural landscape of pre-war Lublin. This aspect will be presented as a reference point to conduct analyses concerning cultural and social aspects of the perception of Lublin’s urban landscape.

Musealized landscapes and petrified landscapes

The text aims to reflect upon the notion of landscape in the context of exhibitions; more precisely, it aims to do so in relation to the musealization of archaeological heritage and presentation of archaeology. The last 30 years of museum transformations, referred to as “the age of museums,” and the digital shift in museology have had a significant impact on building archaeological narratives in museums and beyond. Immersive and telematic landscapes, currently being constructed in museums, allow for sensorial engagement, broadened perceptive possibilities, and more intense interest in archaeology with the use of complex and convincing visions of the past. Hence, the musealized landscape presented in this paper is to go beyond the traditional criticism of multimedia in museums; it is an attempt to appreciate the cognitive opportunities provided by modern archaeological exhibitions.

Photogenic qualities of aquatic landscapes in the works of Roman Polański

In his debut feature film, Knife in the Water (1961), and then in the subsequent films Cul-de-sac (1966), Pirates (1986), Frantic (1988), Bitter Moon (1992), Death and the Maiden (1994), and The Ghost Writer (2010), Roman Polański uses the element of water in a significant way. It is particularly interesting when water is visible and constitutes a crucial element of the films’ narrative—woven from water images and aquatic landscapes. So, how do aquatic landscapes function in Polański’s films? I believe that he develops his individual film style in which the element of water—its being filmed—both emphasizes the protagonists’ motivation, often conditions it, and is also a very important detail which shapes images and, therefore, affects the aesthetics of those images. Does a specific kind of aesthetics created by aquatic landscapes—which are characterized by a particular form of photogeneity—exist? Polański certainly does not use common visual clichés. The beauty of his aquatic landscapes is of a different type. They are interesting, original, non-intrusive, yet noticeable—even if they do not dominate the whole image. The text follows the director’s visual strategies which prove the photogenic potential of his films. I argue that this photogeneity—stemming from, inter alia, aquatic landscapes—determines the attractiveness of Polański’s films.