SPUTNIK PHOTOS

Wiktor Dąbkowski, 1200 Buried Alive

Northern France, 1926-1937. During this period, over five hundred thousand Polish emigrants, including my family, lived in the French department of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. I use archival newspaper clippings. It is they that set the route for my journey through the country of the Ch’ti. I photograph the places where the events described by the contemporary gutter press took place, I find these stories again, often on a whim. The facts are mixed with fiction, the past with the present.
This is a story about places and people, about what life was like decades ago and the present reality of the poorest, crisis-stricken part of France. This is the history of Poles and the French, whose fates were joined together by common work. This coexistence continues to this day – it is estimated that there are currently two hundred thousand descendants of Polish emigrants in the department. The great majority no longer speak their native language.