In 2013, Marta Zgierska survived a serious car accident and several months of intense hardship (surgical procedures, physiotherapy, depression, etc.). This traumatic event completely redefines her photographic work and gave rise to “Post”.
By attempting to embody her trauma through photography, Marta Zgierska uses an autobiographical approach. She distances herself symbolically from her fears and anxieties and fixes them in a pure form, producing fragile pictures that hang on by a thread… Glacial, almost silent images, that form the conundrum of a conversation reduced to the bare essentials, the visual articulation of the minimal language of survival. A rock suspended on a rope, a light-coloured coat spattered with blood, the chassis of a compacted car, a woman’s hand with a bloody lifeline: each photograph metaphorically evokes a part of her own story, suggesting it by elliptically with clinical aesthetics. A hand-written letter is also depicted as a photograph. This is the focal point of her story: using the words of a former teacher describing her at the age of seven, a very good pupil and liked by all, the young woman clearly shows us the persistent discrepancy that she feels today, faced with the world.
Diane Dufour, Director of LE BAL in Paris
Descriptive evaluation of the primary school student
Class I, the first semester
Schoolgirl Marta Zgierska is talented, conscientious and hard-working. During lessons she is very active and focused. She has a rich vocabulary and a large body of knowledge. She can build a coherent, complex statement, correct in terms of material and grammar. She reads fluently and expressively. She writes very nicely and accurately in terms of language and spelling.
She is fluent in mental arithmetic. She solves simple and more complex text exercises. She can apply in practice acquired knowledge. She is interested in phenomena occurring in nature, she knows their causes and effects.
She shows extensive interests and talents. She has good manners. She is friendly and liked by other children.
The Teachers’ Board, 19th January, 1995
Małgorzata Smalec