Booth Event – Book Signing: Paulina Korobkiewicz

Disco Polo documents the aesthetics in Eastern Poland after 1989. This project focuses on the mixed influences from East and West, the effects of global capitalism on the Polish landscape dominated by consuming colourful advertising. Lack of experts in local housing associations resulted in randomly chosen shades, turning the streets into a vivid collage of pastel tower blocks. Project presents kitsch of rough-and-ready billboards, suburban night-clubs and bright-coloured concrete blocks. It explores omnipresent visual chaos in the urban landscape and search for a ‘better world’. Title Disco Polo represents locally most popular music genre of the same name, which developed in Eastern Poland around the time of the political transition. The genre created its own aesthetics, from the outfits to the venues where it is performed. Naive lyrics and over-saturated video clips often embody longing for western capitalism and hope for better future.

‘This picture of a plastic palm tree in the fog is from Paulina Korobkiewicz’s Disco Polo project, documenting the aesthetic of Poland’s transition to global capitalism after 1989. It’s an interesting example of how Western consumerism impacted the minds, tastes, dreams, aspirations and visual culture of the country. Many oppositions meet in this shot: not just East and West. There is a sense of melancholy to it, as well as a sense of humour. This photo of a modern non-place could exist in any corner of the world —but it also reflects something very unique to Poland.’ – Anastasiia Fedorova, It’s Nice That

Book signing by Paulina Korobkiewicz presented by Rethinking Eastern Europe