This text won’t be about The Verve’s song “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” This post will tell about my bitter-sweet attitude towards my homeland.
My photos often show a bitter-sweet view of Warsaw and Poland. All my works that I manage to do during my lifetime will also be a kind of visual bitter-sweet symphony, an artistic tribute, and an anthem towards Poland. I think that I commit more or less consciously to Polish musicians’ works by presenting specific photographs. Which ones? These are Kazik Staszewski (songs: “Polska”, “Jeszcze Polska” and “Nie lubię już Polski”), Grzegorz Ciechowski’s Republika band (song: “Nie pytaj mnie”) or Dezerter („Moj kraj”). For the non-Polish-speaking human above songs are relatively unknown. Thus, you should merely trust me that texts from mentioned songs present a somewhat bitter view of my homeland. They show Poland as a rather dull, gray country with weak perspectives.
The truth is that I possess ambivalent feelings regarding Poland.
On the one hand, I have irreconcilable love, not only for my family. The truth is that I also love all my friends and people I meet every day. I for my surroundings, for my hometowns such as Brok or Malkinia Gorna, finally for Warsaw’s concrete jungle. On the other hand, when I see the polarization of moods and feelings in society, as I watch society quarrel with each other, I believe that the only solution would be to come in from outside, introduce their own rule and pacify both groups to calm down. Do I want this option? Of course not. Poland had been under partitions long enough. I do not wish to the repetition of the history.
Other nations were ruling my country for centuries, and I do not want it to happen again in the 21st century.
I love my homeland, and I wish it the best, even if it sometimes seems to be covered with a two-meter layer of mundane dirt, combined with human anger and gray sadness. Thus, my attitude towards my homeland is, undoubtedly, bitter-sweet. Moreover, I hope that my works of art will create a symphony of Poland.
