We invite you to an author’s meeting with Wojciech Łaski, a Polish-French journalist and photojournalist — a unique opportunity to gain insight into the behind-the-scenes of his work.
For decades, Wojciech Łaski, a Polish-French journalist and photojournalist, has documented key political and social events in Eastern Europe at the end of the 20th century. He collaborated with renowned photo agencies such as Sipa Press, Gamma Press, Keystone, and Black Star. Since the 1980s, he has also pursued his own photography projects in Siberia, Mongolia, North Korea, the former Yugoslavia, and North Africa. In 1992, he founded the East News Poland photo agency in Warsaw, later opening its branches in Moscow and Kyiv. His archive, numbering tens of thousands of negatives, has been published in Time, Newsweek, Paris Match, Stern, Figaro, and many others.
Date: September 25, 6:00 p.m.
Venue: The Sybir Memorial Museum
Free tickets available at the museum ticket office or online
The meeting will be accompanied by the opening of the exhibition Siberian World: Life – History – Survival. Photojournalistic Photography by Wojciech Łaski. The exhibition features 25 photographs taken between 1988 and 2008, showing the contemporary face of Siberia as a region full of contrasts – cultural, social, and human – inseparably connected with the Polish experience of exile.
“In his professional world of photojournalism, Wojciech Łaski is always guided by the principle of reporting the truth. He documents places he chooses for compelling events, recognizing that the role of a photojournalist is to be present where the average person has no chance of reaching. Siberia through his lens is a diverse world, full of contradictions and emotional upheaval,” writes Henryka Milczanowska, art historian and curator of the exhibition.
During the meeting, the author will talk about the background of the presented photographs, share his personal reflections on reportage work in Siberia, his encounters with descendants of Polish exiles, and the harsh realities of life in one of the world’s toughest regions.
The exhibition narrative is structured into five thematic sections:
I. Siberia – Land of Memory
Historical photographs documenting traces of Polish exiles: abandoned villages, portraits of descendants of deportees, revealing both material and spiritual legacies.
II. Archipelago of Violence – Camps and Prisons
A moving series from refugee camps and political prisons in North Korea. Photographs taken secretly under extreme conditions portray the tragic fate of contemporary victims of regimes, bridging past and present.
III. Siberian Ethnoses – Everyday Life and Survival
Portraits and scenes from the lives of indigenous Siberian peoples, including the Nenets, captured with respect for their cultural identity. Natural light and harsh landscapes underscore their endurance.
IV. Baikal – Life on the Border
Photographs taken around Lake Baikal depicting athletes, fishermen, and residents surviving in severe climatic conditions – a story about humanity’s struggle with nature and the need to push one’s limits.
V. Contemporary Siberia – A Group Portrait
Reportage from the urban and industrial spaces of Siberia at the end of the 20th century – Ulan-Ude, Irkutsk, Magadan. Images reflect transformation, juxtaposing traces of the USSR with the chaos and aesthetics of the 1990s.
Curator: Henryka Milczanowska, art historian
Free tickets available at the museum ticket office or online
Free admission (limited seating)
