Temporary exhibition
Andrei Loginov “Charomushki Odyssey”:
between reality and romanticism
- October 4, 2024–March 23, 2025
- opening day: October 4, 2024 (Friday), 6:00 pm
- admission fee is included in the price of the museum ticket
- curator: Professor Marta Smolińska
About exhibition
The Pan Tadeusz Museum, the Branch of the Ossoliński National Institute, invites you to a temporary exhibition “Charomushki Odyssey” presenting the photographs of Andrei Loginov. The exhibition explores the border between reality and romanticism.
Sometimes, the most exciting time travel experiences happen by accident. Such a journey happened to Andrei Loginov, who heard the story of a photographer's abandoned house in the Belarusian village of Charomushki. Imagine a village where life revolves around the collective farm and the younger generation has moved to the city for a better life. Nevertheless, some villagers still remember visiting the photographer in the valley. When they were children, they would have their photos taken there with family members dressed up for the occasion. They told Andrei Loginov about the strange aura they felt when their faces were captured in photos and led him to the photographer's ruined, abandoned house. The artist found the house in a fast-growing forest with several old fruit trees. Visiting the photographer's house was a romantic adventure in those days.
When Andrei Loginov arrived, the roof of the house had already partially collapsed, but under the photographer's bed, the artist found a real treasure: several boxes of glass negatives and a background with a landscape motif. He felt like a romantic explorer of a lost world who had found a door to another era and an invitation to leave his reality. Some negatives remained intact, while others were broken or mouldy due to the moisture that had seeped into the building. The photographer from the village of Charomushki worked from the 1930s to the 1950s. Over time, the faces and silhouettes of the people he photographed became blurred and indistinct; they seemed to disappear or, on the contrary, to appear like ghosts. The glass negatives show villagers posing in front of a painted landscape. They all have serious expressions, as if they knew they were about to make history.
In this way, Andrei Loginov touched the history of this Belarusian village, literally holding it in his hands. He became an explorer and time traveller, blending the past with the present and reality with romantic adventure. He named the project “Charomushki Odyssey” to highlight the dreamy and romantic aspect of his time travel.
The project includes three elements from different time periods: old glass negatives, a landscape photographic background, and newly taken black-and-white photos. After salvaging these precious items from the workshop, Loginov began photographing the present-day villagers against the landscape background he had found in the house. He also listened to their stories with empathy, learning more about the village's history.
In the context of Andrei Loginov's “Charomushki Odyssey”, both elements – new photographs and relics found in the abandoned house – are equally significant. The materiality of the glass negatives and the photographic backgrounds evoke memories that stimulate the imagination of the viewers. The project raises questions about macrohistory and shifting borders (before World War II, the village belonged to Poland), as well as the microhistory of the village's inhabitants – when the photo studio operated as it does today.
Google Maps shows that it takes about two hours by car from the village of Charomushki to Zaosie and Nowogródek – where Adam Mickiewicz was born on December 24, 1798. This is another layer of time that comes to the fore in the context of the exhibition at the Pan Tadeusz Museum – the photographed inhabitants of the village of Charomushki are Mickiewicz's neighbours from the future.
“Charomushki Odyssey” tells the visual story of the fate of people living in a particular village (since the historical photos were taken, this area has experienced collectivization, the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the Lukashenko regime). This problematic history is reflected in the faces of the people standing in front of the camera, but their fates are universalized against the background of historical and contemporary events. The materiality of old photographs, glass negatives, and photographic backgrounds is central to the non-human actors: their presence tells a story without words.
Andrei Loginov, who discovered the photographer's abandoned house and continued his photographic work with today's villagers, experienced the consequences of pursuing his artistic project under the Belarusian authoritarian regime. The secret services interrogated him as a person suspected of acting against the state of Belarus. While working on “Charomushki Odyssey,” he also painfully experienced this contemporary and oppressive layer of reality. Although he lives and works in Berlin, he still has Belarusian citizenship, so he could be imprisoned if he were in Belarus.
However, the artist not only travelled through time himself but also took us, the project's recipients, with him. Andrei Loginov took on the role of the village photographer and continued his task. Using photographic means, he created a time loop: contemporary people are photographed in front of a painted background with a landscape as if they were taking the place of those who posed in the 1930s–1950s. And all this takes place in the Pan Tadeusz Museum of the Ossoliński National Institute, which deals with the border between reality and romanticism.
Marta Smolińska
Curatorial team
- artist: Andrei Loginov
- curator: Professor Marta Smolińska
- coordination: Agnieszka Śrutwa and the Event Production Section team
- production: Joanna Poślednia and the Technical Department team
- arrangement and visual identification: Adriana Myśliwiec
- multimedia cooperation: Jarosław Mizera and the Multimedia Section team
- conservator’s cooperation: Aleksandra Kuklewska
Media patrons
- TVP3 Wrocław
- Radio Wrocław
- Radio RAM
- Radio Wrocław Kultura
- Fundacja Archeologia Fotografii
- Niezła sztuka
