Vibrations and Afterimages

According to the one of the legends, the Vistula River was the result of the merging of two mountain streams, which marked the route of two sisters, daughters of the ruler Beskid, on their journey from Barania Góra to the distant Baltic Sea. The sisters were to cross the Polish lands together with the waters of the two springs and, having reached the sea, never to return home again. The Vibrations and Afterimages by Rafał Siderski and Małgorzata Lebda is an inter-media exhibition with the Vistula, a living and important heroine of Polish cultural identity, at its centre.

The river, as an entity on its own, exists autonomously from the human order and effortlessly escapes submitting to words or images. In Rafał Siderski's photographs, the Vistula becomes a guide to a terrain and life far removed from the everyday human experience. Taken from the perspective of an attentive observer, the landscapes focus on the beauty and exuberance of the riverside world. They are an attempt at a non-anthropocentric view, particularly relevant in these times of recurring climatic crises that are fundamentally changing the face of our contemporaneity.

The exhibition comprises photographs by Rafał Siderski and a new, yet unpublished text by Małgorzata Lebda. The works are accompanied by the artists' publication Tributaries, Vibrations, Afterimages and Songs on the Riverbanks published in 2024. It draws on the experience of companioning the river during Lebda's 1113-kilometre run along the Vistula, which the poet accomplished in 2021.