Collection

The Millennium School series comprises 44 photographs taken at Primary School No. 3 in Wąbrzeźno, Krzysztof Zieliński’s hometown. The school was established in 1962 as one of 1,400 built in the government programme One Thousand Schools for the Millennium of Polish Statehood. From the vantage point of contemporaneous standards, all buildings were modern, with spacious gym halls, comfortable classrooms, and appropriate furnishings. Today, they are rather bleak, technological and construction flaws increasingly visible. Practically nothing has changed since Zieliński’s days at the school: only the walls are vivid in colour, as if in an attempt to mask the passage of time and conceal the humble interiors.

Photographer. A photography graduate of FAMU in Prague, he also studied at Middlesex University London. His photographs are distinct in their painting-like composition. The artist is openly inspired by American landscape photography of the 1970s, slightly surrealist and wide-angle based. He applies a similar strategy to the single trope he truly explores: his own town or city. Zieliński photographs his hometown of Wąbrzeźno and the city of Berlin, where he lives now. His photographs are a record of taming, experiencing, and rediscovering specific locations. He lives and works in Berlin.