Jerzy Wierzbicki

"Gdansk Suburbia' is a recent project by Jerzy Wierzbicki. "...Gdańsk has always been a very unique city. It is one of the largest harbors on the Baltic coast and there were always many conflicts concerning to which territory it should belong or who should rule it. This even constituted a pretext for German army to attack Poland and consequently caused the outbreak of the World War II. Later Gdańsk also played a significant role in world history. It is the place where the Solidarity movement originated and where workers of the Gdańsk shipyard, among them the icon of the revolution in 1980 - Lech Wałęsa - the shipyard electrician, and their fight to free Poland triggered political changes in the East-Bloc countries. As a result of the changes the Iron Curtain was torn apart and the Communist regime in Eastern Europe fell. All these events took place twenty-five years ago; Wierzbicki was five years old at that time. Paradoxically, the first day Jerzy Wierzbicki began photographing his hometown was also the last day Lech Wałęsa was the president of Poland."