The thesis “Farewell” presents a collection of photos taken by Adam Mazek. When the author was nine years old, he has experienced a traumatic experience. His four years elder brother Marcin died of leukemia.
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Having the full but still childish awareness of the unhappiness that happened under the influence of emotions connected with the tragedy, one vision remained in the author’s memory. It is the view of the block in which the brothers lived together. A clean, minimalist, geometric, and apocalyptic piece of massive, bright concrete was placed in dark, ominous asphalt. This painting remained in mind and the imagination of Adam Mazek to this day. The author still believes that this picture presents a view of the brothers’ home on the last day before Marcin went to the hospital and never see his house again. The title “Farewell” refers to the fact that since the beginning of Marcin’s illness, Adam, to the end, boundlessly but also naively believed that his brother would survive.
For this reason, he never told his brother the word “Goodbye.”
Every time he saw him before he died, during his stay at the Warsaw hospital, keeping the innocent and childish faith, he believed that Marcin would return to his home soon. Unfortunately, this has never happened. Marcin died in Warsaw on January 28, 1994, about three weeks after the last day spent at home.
The first part, consisting of five images, refers to the broadly understood life. Objects, photographed in the Warsaw urban space, are loosely related to the cellular, purest, and minimalist form of life. This part of the images contains a trace of existence. The other half of the paintings refer to illness, trauma, and death. To the fact that each of us will one day die and go away forever. One of the few things, besides meaningful silence, that can remain after we are the pictures. Thanks to the fact that they will see the light of day, the memory of my Brother shall not soon fade. It will get a new, second life in the eyes of future generations.
This work is a tribute to the work author’s brother, Marcin Mazek, and brothers’ parents.
Farewell Brother!
PS
Yesterday that is on 17.09.2018; Marcin would have turned 37.
For the Polish version “Pożegnanie,” click here.
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