Lost Place
by Kamil Sleszynski
‘Lost Place’ tells the story about Metanoia, the Catholic Center for Education and Addiction Therapy. The facility helps young people addicted to drugs and alcohol. Located in the Knyszynska Forest in Poland, it occupies the former administration building Agroma factories which, in the past, produced agricultural machinery, home appliances, and likely also weapons.
This is a place without an address, in the middle of the woods. The walls of the forgotten fabric make it so hard to see. Make it invisible. This is the place, where some people have found their asylum. Without old thoughts, buddies and drugs.
This subject is a direct result of Kamil's previous project ‘Input/Output’ (featured in prism #21), which consists of photographs made within prisons and a re-entry center that supports ex-prisoners. "While working on it, it turned out that many of my subjects went to jail because of drugs or alcohol, and I wanted to get to the root of the problem."
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| Lost Place, 2016 © Kamil Sleszynski |
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| Lost Place, 2016 © Kamil Sleszynski |
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| Lost Place, 2016 © Kamil Sleszynski |
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| Lost Place, 2016 © Kamil Sleszynski |
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| Lost Place, 2016 © Kamil Sleszynski |
Kamil Sleszynski is a self-taught documentary photographer based in Bialystok, Poland. He works on long-term projects that focus on the complex relationships between people. He often photographs with a large-format camera. "I liked using it for this work because it interested many of the people I photographed, as did the old style photographic techniques you had to use to operate the camera. Most of my subjects have never seen such equipment and it always is a brand new experience for them which really helps a lot, and lessens the distance and unfamiliarity. On the other hand, I had a limited number of shots which made me have to concentrate and focus more on what I was doing."
Kamil Sleszynski's website