Mother and Daughter (Matka i Córka)

This series explores the isolation and mutual dependence of a mother and a daughter. I shot this project in February 2018 in a small village in east-central Poland, Bzów, where my family is from, and where I spent the first ten years of my life. The two protagonists are my great-aunt, Ela, who was a full-time carer for my great-grandmother, Fela, who was 97 years old when the photos were taken and suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s. Every year, I return to Poland to spend time with them both, and this essay is the result of multiple journeys over the years.

Bzów is a village of around 200 people and winters in Poland can be very harsh, and like most houses in the area, using coal for cooking and heating is the norm. Every winter, my aunt shovels around four tons of coal on her own to heat the house. They have no internet, and almost every year electricity lines, and sometimes water pipes, freeze when the temperature falls below to -20 C and local people have to be moved to hotels.

Their whole life takes place in the living room of the house, where most of the series was shot. Fela is unable to walk so all of the sleeping, eating and sometimes even bathing has to be carried out in that one room. The TV is their main connection with the “outside” world, and is permanently on. Fela is hard of hearing, so it is often on without any sound.

By focusing on mundane and intimate moments of Ela and Fela’s relationships, I explore the tensions of physical and emotional dependence, as well as physical isolation that dominate the lives of these two women.