Artist Blog

Every week an artist whose single image was published by Der Greif is given a platform in which to blog about contemporary photography.

Hello. I am happy to show you in my first post a stirring project of my friend - Karolina. Karolina Jonderko is a student of photography in National Filmschool in Lodz, Poland. She has just received two honorable mentions at the 10th International Photography Awards. "I remember the joy of discovering Haribo wine gums, Nutella or margarine amid colourful clothes in large 15-kg-heavy cardboard boxes. We got parcels from our relatives living in "Ef" (Federal Republic of Germany), when many basic products were unavailable in Poland. It was a celebration, we always opened them together with the whole family. These clothes were enough for my mother, she never felt the need to buy new ones. She preferred to save up for more important things. She always looked modest, and did not like black. They say that clothes create your identity, and all her life mum wore clothes which she hadn't chosen for herself. On 28th July 2011, four years passed from her death. Since that moment I have been living the past and in the past. I have based all my work up to now on reminiscences and longing. Self-portrait with my mother is an attempt at concluding this difficult period in my life, at a final reconciliation with reality and at leaving the past and what "was" behind. My grandma's house is today empty and cold, the damage caused by mining is turning it into a ruin. It is here that we were raised: my mother, my sister and me. It is here that I brought the clothes after my mother's death. It is here that, after my grandma died, I create self-portraits, I recreate exactly the way my mother used to dress from memory. I put on one set of the clothes after another, the same ones we pulled out from the boxes with such joy. On a green coat I find her blond hair."