The exhibition presented at the MeMo Mediatheque is a collection of works from the first and second editions of the exhibition, which premiered in 2024, respectively, during the Fotofestiwal and the Man in Danger Media Festival. The DYWERS project, which was created under the substantive supervision of Prof. Inga Kuźma from the University of Lodz, is a part of the university's strategy for the coming years, which reads:
Diversity is the strength of the University of Lodz. Respect and understanding for different opinions and attitudes, as well as cultural openness and worldview tolerance constitute the foundations of our activities
Photo 1. The opening of the DYWERS exhibition during Fotofestiwal 2024 (photo Maciej Andrzejewski / Centre for Brand Communications, University of Lodz)
The works feature people living with ACOA syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder or ADHD. A visually impaired person, transgender men and a Jew from Lodz also tell their stories to viewers. There is also a vegan, a man after a nervous breakdown, a Ukrainian woman and an atheist and these are not all the stories. The photographs are accompanied by descriptions written by the photographer based on the conversations with people participating in the project.
One of the photos uses a quote from Rebecca Solnit about empathy – a capacity that we as a society still lack. The frames kept in the convention of staged photography ooze with diversity, thanks to which they reflect the fascinating complexity of the world.
The portraits offer various types of aesthetics. They include references to the visual arts of the past, including 19th-century painting and photographic practices from the early 20th century.
The photographs taken as part of the DYWERS project are not only the result of a complex creative process and a source of aesthetic satisfaction, but above all, an inspiration for discussion and changing too hasty judgments and assessments that we sometimes make towards others
reads the curatorial text by Prof. Marek Domański from the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź.
Photo 2: Photo from the DYWERS exhibition
The values that guide the University of Lodz in its activities include courage, cooperation and respect. This is where the form of the photographic project, which the author comments on, comes from.
When I completed my doctoral dissertation on social stigma less than 10 years ago, the social reality was slightly different. There were more things that surprised us. And although we are still quite homogeneous in Poland, and over the last few years a polarisation of attitudes towards minorities has been observed, a qualitative change can be observed in the media discourse, a large part of which is now grass-roots content produced in social media. There are plenty of accounts on Instagram or TikTok run by neuroatypical, non-heteronormative or people with disabilities who share their experience with others and familiarise their followers with the complexity of the world. Diversity should be talked about and shown. Even if, not everyone likes it.
More information on the DYWERS project can be found on the project website.