802% ABOVE THE NORM

What does the title of the project signify? 802% above the norm in coal mining or house building, is a figure that may have been achieved by front-rank workers at the turn of the 1940s-1950s in Poland. It is a symbol of communist propaganda. It might well have been 300, 500 or even 2000% above the norm, because after all even the official records carry such numbers.

Henryk Makarewicz and Wiktor Pental photos illustrate this social phenomena in Nowa Huta - 'Polish communism city of dreams', one of the major projects and symbols of Polish communism (the construction started in the summer of 1949). They also consider the following: the vast migration of people from the country to the steelworks (named after W. I. Lenin); squeezing them into the space provided by the arising model city of social realism; filling their efforts and everyday reality with propaganda of communist romanticism; and the creation of the only available symbolic space, which where intented to shape the new Pole, the builder of Soviet Poland. The city which sprang into existence around the industrial complex in several years' time became a vast laboratory of social realism for urban planing and art.

The community of Nowa Huta was a model example of the birth and solidification of the mechanism which played a decisive role in the ideological and social failure of communism: that is, the mounting resistance of workers against a dictatorship exercised formally in their name and against an ideology supporting it. The form of resistance (the tension of 1956; the riots to protect the cross in 1960; the many years of church-backed campaigns to build a church in Nowa Huta) were harbingers of the nationwide breakthroughs in 1968 and in 1970. Last but not least, Nowa Huta is one of the symbols of the Solidarity revolution of 1980 and 1981, which gave Poles the taste of freedom and the need for independence. The Lenin steelworks became a base for one of the most important structures of the independent Self-Governing Trade Union 'Solidarity'. After martial law was declared in 13th December, 1981, the significance of the cenre Nowa Huta did not diminish - a resilient union organization of 'Solidarity' was maintained which engaged itself in political and self-help activities. In the 1980s broad expanses of Nowa Huta's avenues became, in addition to Gdańsk and Wrocław, the playground of 'Solidarity' demonstrations and street fightings with ZOMO. Outside Gdansk, the Nowa Huta strike of 1988 helped to pave the way for the transitory period of the Roundtable Negotiations and the eventual victorious elections of 'Solidarity' on 4th June, 1989, which resulted in the collapse of the communist system and the regaining of independence.

Motorcycle races. 802 per cent above the norm is a figure that may have been achieved by a worker during soviet era in coal mining or house building. It was an element of propaganda that aimed on awaking the spirit of competition. Peoples positive attitude was needed as the authorities decided to build a place that will be entirely communistic, namely Nowa Huta. It is a district of Cracow, originally planned as a separate city, that was built between 1949 and 1951 and that was intended to be a model, socialist city in the neighborhood of historical place, that Cracow certainly was. Since 1951 Nowa Huta is integrated part of Cracow. Cracow, Poland. 1950s ©Henryk Makarewicz/visavis.pl

Decorated front rank workers in the May Day parade. 802 per cent above the norm is a figure that may have been achieved by a worker during soviet era in coal mining or house building. It was an element of propaganda that aimed on awaking the spirit of competition. Peoples positive attitude was needed as the authorities decided to build a place that will be entirely communistic, namely Nowa Huta. It is a district of Cracow, originally planned as a separate city, that was built between 1949 and 1951 and that was intended to be a model, socialist city in the neighborhood of historical place, that Cracow certainly was. Since 1951 Nowa Huta is integrated part of Cracow. Nowa Huta, Cracow, Poland. 1950 ©Wiktor Pental/visavis.pl

EXHIBITION PROJECT

In July 2007 portraits of socialist "model workers" hung in the streets of Polish towns. It was then that the Imago Mundi Foundation and the Visavis.pl Photographers' Collective collaborated in the outdoor exhibition event entitled "802% above the norm".

The exhibition was displayed in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, and comprised two hundred photographs of Henryk Makarewicz and Wiktor Pental, as well as a multimedia installation by Anna Gawlikowska. A documentary film, "Real Utopia" (dir. Andrzej Kramarz, Renata Plaga) was also screened, as well as photocasts, which are photographic presentations with first-hand commentary from witnesses of the past era. Thanks to citylights and billboards the workers' portraits became a part of the capital's cityscape. Huge portraits of the "front rank workers" hung off The Palace of Culture and Science, a symbol of Soviet Russia's "friendship" with Poland.

"802% above the norm" exhibition in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw and in city  space. ©Lukasz Trzcinski

In December 2007 the photographs were presented in the place, where most of them were taken - in Cracow's district of Nowa Huta. The old "Swiatowid" cinema (1958-1992) became an exhibition hall, and an outdoor exhibition of some of the photographs in the Small Market Square in the heart of Cracow's Old Town managed to create a hotchpotch of photography with the urban surroundings.

"802% above the norm" exhibition in the "Swiatowid" cinema and at the Small Market Square in Krakow. ©Michal Luczak