Collection

The work is part of the Wydobycie (Eng. Extraction) series, which tells the story of a natural resource that still drives industry, supplies coal-fired power stations and creates jobs in Poland. It is the basis for the livelihoods of several hundred thousand people. The burning and mining of coal is constantly changing the landscape of Upper Silesia, affecting its architecture and air pollution.

After being away from his home town for several years, Łuczak returned to Katowice and settled in the housing estate under which the mine had been in operation. The effects of coal extracting were more noticeable there. The subsidence, or collapse of places left behind by the chosen material, was as disturbing and frustrating as it was inspiring. The photographer set out to capture the consequences of coal mining, which he had previously taken for granted as a natural and obvious phenomenon.

In a series of photographs taken between 2017 and 2023, he photographed dumps reminiscent of a desert or dystopian landscape. He also photographed byways formed by sinkholes, which sooner or later succumb to human destruction. Finally, he documented the miners' bodies at the end of their shift. He focused on individuals condemned to work in noise, high temperatures and conditions where the dust of black gold seeped into every pore of the skin. Łuczak captured the physical and emotional exhaustion of working several hundred metres below the surface, the claustrophobic tunnels, the darkness that heightened the feeling that every descent to work could be the last. Thus he has created a simple, raw series about precisely this subcutaneous fear of the destructive urges of mankind.

Visual artist, photographer, author of photography books, curator and university lecturer. Member of the Sputnik Photos collective. Graduate of the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava and Iberian Studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He works mainly with photography and video. Łuczak often returns to his Silesian roots. He documents local communities and architecture, as well as tensions in the relationship between man and nature and the consequences of the coal industry. In an effort to give his photographs a universal character, he avoids activist or journalistic overtones. He also cooperates with writers and reporters.

He lives in Katowice and works mainly in Warsaw.