2024-07-03 07:53:16
Polish photojournalist Mariusz Forecki has a gift for reaching places where other journalists cannot. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that Shamil Basayev photographed separatist fighters during the first Chechen war. He documented many important events in the area of the former Soviet Union. From the war in Afghanistan to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh to the earthquake in Armenia. He is currently exhibiting at the 400 ASA gallery.
Mariusz Forecki (*1962) took his photographs during many trips to the former Soviet Union, both in the final stage of its existence and during the formation of a new socio-political order.
“I watched the former republics of the Soviet Union regain their independence. I saw the birth of new states, the struggle for identity, the return of displaced peoples and emigration for a better life. I did not realize at the time that I was witnessing events that later became symbols of the disintegration of the state built on tyranny and unimaginable human suffering,” explains photojournalist Mariusz Forecki.
Photographs of Russian soldiers plastered on cars as an incentive for young men to join the army. Surroundings of the city of Klin in the Moscow region (2015). | Photo: Mariusz Forecki / From the Dust exhibition in the 400 ASA gallery
“Out of the dust of this collapse emerged the image of a new empire, which under the guise of democracy, with the help of brutal propaganda and modern socio-technique, transformed into an evil empire threatening the world based on the ideals of humanism and the human right to freedom and happiness,” he adds.
The curator of the Prague exhibition, Adrian Wykrota, characterizes Forecký as a photographer with a romantic soul, whose sensitivity, courage and tireless perseverance are transformed into a desire to tell stories about the world and people. “It seems that when the dust settles, only the persistence of the documentarian remains. The world will eventually sort itself out somehow, but pictures – like Forecký’s – will stay with us and become the subject of analysis, witnesses of history, an honest and unique record of the times,” he states.
An inconspicuous man who gets everywhere
“Mariusz, who looks so calm and inconspicuous, got among the fighters of Shamil Basayev in Chechnya, got among the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is incredible where he manages to penetrate. Moreover, his photographs are not just some reportage testimony, but have the ability to survive and general validity,” says Vladimír Birgus, head of the Opava Institute of Creative Photography. Forecki studies in Opava, currently as a doctoral student.
The exhibition in the 400 ASA gallery contains images from Forecký’s book Prach, published in 2022, which won the main prize at the 32nd Month of Photography in Bratislava (2022), the title of Photo Book of the Year in the most important Polish journalistic photography competition, Grand Press Photo, and was nominated for various another prestigious award.
Musa Baschanov was seriously wounded in the defense of Grozny airport. After recovering from his injuries, he returned to the unit. His friends called him “cyborg” | Photo: Mariusz Forecki / From the Dust exhibition in the 400 ASA gallery
He also met a Chechen “cyborg”
“The photographs are from the time when I was intensively photographing in the countries of the former Soviet Union and in Russia itself. Over time it turned out that I have documented events that are also significant from the point of view of European history. So I decided to make a book out of them. It is in “There are 140 photos and they are pictures from the great earthquake in Armenia, from the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, from Afghanistan at the time when Russian troops entered there, photos from the Jewish Autonomous Region at the time when Jews emigrated to Israel,” says Forecki.
“In the book and in the exhibition, you will also find photos from Grozny from the first Chechen war, when I got to Shamil Basayev’s units and met the then president Dzhokhar Dudayev. I was even with the camera in the presidential palace in Grozny on the last day of the defense.” Forecki calculates. One of the pictures he took at the time also shows Musa Baschanov, who was seriously injured during the defense of the airport in Grozny. After recovering from his injuries, he returned to the unit. “His friends called him a cyborg,” recounts Forecki.