Michał Drozd "Rosengarten"
To all appearances we are presented here with photos of the everyday – images from now, albeit perhaps of the past.
Showcasing the graduates of the Sputnik Photos Mentoring Programme 2023/2024. More photos will be on display at the
exhibition in Warsaw, starting 26 April, 2025.
To all appearances we are presented here with photos of the everyday – images from now, albeit perhaps of the past. Images of suburban normality, of a familiar relation between streets and buildings – curbs, parking, dustbins – as between trees and tarmac. But then two portrait images send us back and we realize that all these places are absent of people, they are ‘empty.’ Then follow the contrasts – between color and black-and-white, details and landscapes, objects and places. Between the singular and the generic, are all these relations an enquiry, an investigation? What might be the story of, or behind, the composition? Everything seems to echo that basic contrast we like to believe in between the ordinary and extraordinary, the normal and abnormal, the humane and the inhuman. While we want to believe in these distinctions (and that there is ‘nothing to see here’), we know perfectly well that the worst that can be imagined can also become normal for those involved in it; for those employed in a task, getting on with their job, moving between being ‘at work’ and being ‘off work.’ Here we return to ‘appearances’ – that is, to an invitation to look again. What do we see in what the camera shows here? In what the photographer has chosen to show us? ‘To all appearances’ suggests a contrast with ‘reality’ – a contrast to which these images seem impervious. But if what could be seen is not to be found there, where is the ‘elsewhere’ that is thereby evoked? That elsewhere called the Rose Garden?
Mischa Twitchin
The square next to the gas chambers was called ‘Rosengarten.’ There were many versions related to that name. One of them had it that among the gathered people there were young Jewish girls. The SS soldiers would enter the fenced area and do a very thorough search. During the humiliating search for valuables, the girls would blush ashamed. One of the Germans noticed that and said to the other – ‘Look, they blush like roses, we are in a garden of roses.’
