Late Transformation Archive | Minilabists

Late Transformation Archive | Minilabists

(Marek Mielnicki, Joanna Miklaszewska-Sierakowska, Radek Spassówka)

Curator: Witold Kanicki
Venue: Gallery Curators’LAB, 12 Nowowiejskiego Str.
Duration of exhibition: 17.10.2024 – 3.11.2024
Opening: 17.10.2024, 17:00

The Polaroid JoyCam camera, one of the last products of a bankrupt manufacturer of instant photographic materials, was intended to function as a cheap party toy. Members of the Poznan Minilabists group used it not only for this purpose, immortalizing reality, objects, people and events preceding Poland’s accession to the European Union on miniature films. The resulting archive of nearly 2,000 color snapshots is a unique collection of images of the symbolic end of the political transformation, in which the post-communist reality of the old regime merges with the sad consumerism of the crisis years at the beginning of the new century. The features of the Polaroids used by Minilabists, such as fast food impatience, low image quality or faded colors, seem to perfectly match the motifs immortalized in the photos. At the same time, during the period of the group members’ activity, miniature snapshots contrasted strongly with the common idea about the conventions, methods and techniques of artistic photography.