A Photographer’s Search for Post-Immigration Identity
By Natalie Stanczak
In Germany I am Polish and in Poland I am German. I still remember the smell of the hallway when I ran up to my grandparents home, turning the knob of the door covered with wooden foil. A window in the bathroom looking out to the kitchen. Unspoken stories lingered on their faces; anti-Slavism the shadow that hovers over our family history.
In the eyes of others, I sometimes see the reflection of my own doubts and insecurities. Society – the formative actor, questions me. She wrote her own story about us. About me. Between the stories of my family and the structures of a new society, I search for identity. What influence do these stories have on my memories? How do they shape my perspective of this country to which we fled? I search for truths that are often hidden. My eyes see in the dark.
This body of work is my gaze through time and space, through memories old and newly created. Through photographic inquiry I attempt to untangle the double-bind, to look away, to look in, to remember and forget, in order to find the core of my origins. I vow that the gaze of others will not close my eyes to the gentleness of this world.
Natalie Stanczak is a documentary family photographer and sociologist. The faces that have been deleted from discourses can be found in her works. Almost inconspicuous and yet very clearly, her pictures evoke entire stories. From individual traces to collective archiving, her art is dedicated to raising awareness of structural inequality, intersectionality, solidarity and connection.
