"The exhibition “Pleasantfelde“ was opened in the Villa Decius side by side by director Danuta Glondys and Tomasz Padło – geographer by profession, photographer by passion, lecturer at the Pedagogical University of Krakow. Giving his audience background information about his presented works, Tomasz Padło admitted that he was full of stereotypes about Germany when he arrived in Brandenburg to stay in an artistic residency in the Genshagen Castle in 2013. But his stay changed his attitude. A folder promoting the city Ludwigsfelde (which Genshagen is a part of) catched his interest – and he was inspired to explore the environment of Ludwigsfelde and to take some photographs which respond to certain phrases in the folder. So, his photographs reflect his own perception of space in striking contrast to folder presentations which, as he noted, “transmit uniformized information about space“.
It was very appreciable that Tomasz Padło even made his photo exhibition an interactive experince: He shared out phrases extracted from a folder promoting Ludwigsfelde to the participants and let them find out which photograph responds to which phrase. Addressed themes were for example history, nature, education and employment. Altogether, it became quite explicit to the participants that Tomasz Padło's photographs speak a strong language – and that they make up a convincing example of the connection between geography (respectively “space“) and photography."
by Jill-Francis Käthlitz
The project was realized during the artist residency programme "George Sand - Frédéric Chopin" in Genshagen, Germany