About

Curated and Edited by: Beata Bartecka & Łukasz Rusznica
Design: Joanna Jopkiewicz (Grupa Projektor)
Essay: Tomasz Stempowski
Colour proofing and Prepress: Krzysztof Krzysztofiak
Published by: Palm* Studios & Ośrodek Postaw Twórczych

First Edition 500 copies, Printed in EU

If you are in Poland please buy directly from OPT

How to Look Natural in Photos is a book about a totalitarian system which uses photography for its purposes. It includes reflections on the mechanism and relationships connected with looking and photographing, observing and being observed, describing and being described. Violence begins in the nervous system, from an impulse that runs through the body and makes someone press the shutter. It ends in an archive, the place where information and images are stored. This basis reveals who interprets the collected data, and consequently – who controls the facts. The book also tells a story of spies, agents, guards, AI algorithm programmers, surveillance subjects, suspects, archivists, convicts and accidentally photographed passers-by. They interact on various levels, all comprising one huge machine, inordinate and dispersed.

All the photos in the book come from the archive of the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (IPN), which investigates the history of Poland between the early 20th century and the fall of the totalitarian system. The book contains descriptions of photographs based on archival notes, and essay by Tomasz Stempowski, historian and archivist.

Details
Artist: 
Bartecka & Rusznica
Publisher: 
Palm* & OPT
Publication date: 
01/03/2021
Pages number: 
304
Cover: 
Hardcover
Size: 
26.4 cm x 20cm
Isbn: 
978-83-917373-5-4
Press
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