Zofia Rydet: Sociological Record  – Bulletins

From October 10, The Photographers’ Gallery in London will present Polish artist Zofia Rydet’s landmark photographic undertaking, Sociological Record for the primary time within the United Kingdom. The exhibition is produced by The Photographers’ Gallery in partnership with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Zofia Rydet Foundation and is a part of UK/Poland Season 2025.

Sociological Record is a complete documentation of on a regular basis life in Polish houses, protecting completely different many years, areas, and customs. This monumental work is among the most essential achievements of Twentieth-century Polish pictures. It has been exhibited at venues similar to MoMA and the International Center of Photography in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Starting in 1978, aged 67 years outdated, Zofia Rydet (1911–1997) set out on a mammoth process to {photograph} the within of ‘every’ Polish family. Motivated by a need to seize the strange, unsung populations, notably of the countryside–but in addition protecting cities and cities–Rydet would change into more and more obsessed along with her mission to file the cultures and folks that she sought out.

Rydet minimize an unlikely determine on her subject journeys to completely different areas, a diminutive girl travelling by bus or with the assistance of buddies who may drive her. Approaching households unannounced, she would knock and warmly introduce herself, asking these residing there in the event that they wish to participate in her undertaking. Using a newly acquired broad angle lens and flash, Rydet was capable of seize typically darkened interiors of houses and their inhabitants intimately. Asking her sitters to not smile and look straight forward into the digital camera lens, her topics are posed of their houses, wealthy in private histories.

As the sequence progressed, Rydet would determine completely different classes throughout the Sociological Record similar to ‘Women on Doorsteps’, ‘Professions’, ‘Road Signs’, ‘Windows’, ‘Houses’ and ‘Televisions’. She would additionally come to determine extra philosophical themes similar to ‘Presence’–noting the omnipresence of the Polish Pope John Paul II’s picture (inaugurated the identical yr Rydet began the Record in 1978) inside Polish households. Others included ‘The Myth of Photography’ specializing in the central place and significance of household images throughout the dwelling, similar to conventional, hand-painted studio images of married {couples} in houses with little or no different ornament.

The exhibition focuses on uncommon prints made by the artist in her dwelling darkroom, together with the essential sequence People in Interiors and sub-series similar to Women on Doorsteps and Presence. Archival supplies may even be on show, in addition to Andrzej Różycki’s 1989 documentary movie Infinity of Distant Roads. Overheard and Suspicious. Zofia Rydet A.D. 1989 and documentary portraits of Zofia Rydet at work by photographer Anna Beata Bohdziewicz.

The exhibition is accompanied by a brand new catalog in English, containing texts by Zofia Rydet and 100 images from Sociological Record. This is a joint undertaking of The Photographers’ Gallery and Palm* Studios, with the help of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The choice of images is predicated on Wojciech Nowicki’s version of the e book Zofia Rydet. Record (Museum in Gliwice, 2016).

The exhibition is a part of the UK/Poland Season 2025, which runs till November and is co-organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the British Council, and the Polish Cultural Institute in London, with the help of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

For extra data and to e book tickets go to tpg.org.uk/zofiarydet

The Photographers’ Gallery is open on a regular basis 10am–6pm, Thursday and Fridays 10am–8pm and Sundays 11am–6pm. Fridays entry is free from 5pm