Children of Średnia Wieś through the lens of Jukka Male | Jukka Male (FIN) | Summer School of Tradition

Photography is not always proof of anything. It cannot bear witness to what is invisible. The most important things can sometimes be unseen or disappear.

Jukka Male 02.02.2022

Jukka Male is a Finnish photographic artist who first came to the village of Średnia Wieś, located in the Bieszczady Mountains in southern Poland, in 1979.

Średnia Wieś looks like an ordinary Polish village. Even its name could be misinterpreted as meaning an average or ordinary village. In fact, the village’s modern name comes from Terpiczów, a settlement that was once divided into three parts, specifically its middle section – Terpiczów Średni. The people here live just as they do anywhere else

– explains the photographer.

For 36 years, he kept returning to the same places and people, documenting their lives and the changes they experienced. The villagers welcomed him warmly, and over time he earned their trust and friendship. Jukka Male photographed everyday life, family celebrations, work, and leisure. Thanks to his long-term documentation, we can witness these transformations – children seen in his black-and-white photographs later reappear as teenagers in colour images taken in the “new Poland.”

The selection of works presented in the exhibition focuses primarily on children, whose lives Jukka Male portrayed as they truly were – without unnecessary staging or idealisation. We see them playing, working, and resting. They are full of the simple joy of being together and having fun, while also helping with farm work and supporting their parents and grandparents. We also see the world in which they grew up – the yard, the fields, the family home, and the people closest to them.

The black-and-white photographs were taken between 1979 and 1981, while the colour images date from the post-communist period. The use of colour is an essential part of the artist’s visual language, but it also serves as a marker of time and social change.

For a very long time, I observed Średnia Wieś in the dark, without knowing the region’s difficult history. I first came here because I wanted to see the hilly landscape furthest away from Finland. I was looking for an inspiring environment, so I kept travelling through increasingly hilly regions until I reached the Northern Carpathians. It happened by chance, and fortunately so.

My photographs of Średnia Wieś span 36 years. My first visit was in 1979, and the last one took place in April 2015. During that time, both Poland and Średnia Wieś underwent enormous changes – the collapse of the socialist regime and, later, Poland’s accession to the European Union.

Since my first visit, the most visible change in the village has been that three hundred cows and one hundred horses have vanished from the landscape. But an even greater change has taken place in my own mind. Because of what is invisible.

Jukka Male (born in 1954 in Helsinki) is a Finnish photographer, documentarian, and creator of music and films.

He has been involved in photography since the 1970s. He gained his first experiences thanks to his grandfather, with whom he had a very close friendship. While studying photography, he also worked at the Goethe-Institut. He was present at and documented many important and difficult events in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as at the beginning of the 21st century – political transformations, social life, everyday life and festive occasions. He created long-term projects, returning to places and people. Among his most important projects are “How Brothers Became Others – The Balkan Tragedy”, showing the victims of the war in former Yugoslavia; Chino Street in Barcelona, Średnia Wieś in Poland, and a photo reportage from the disappearing small fishing village of Oqaatsut in Greenland. Each photograph carries a story, and the seconds from the lives of various social groups captured on film reveal the vast range of experiences gathered by the artist over the years. From 1998 to 2018, the artist ran the independent gallery and photography museum Jukka Male Museo, located in the old Helsinki Cable Factory – Kaapelitehdas. He first came to Poland at the end of the 1970s. His planned journey was preceded by an intensive Polish language course. The artist currently lives and works in Poland, in Katowice.

The exhibition is presented as part of the “Summer School of Tradition” project.

The Summer School of Tradition is organized by the Kultura Enter Foundation.
The project is implemented with the support of the City of Lublin.
In cooperation with: Workshops of Culture in Lublin, the Re:tradition – Jagiellonian Fair festival, and the Dominican Monastery in Lublin.

Details

When: August 3-28, 2026, open 24 hours a day
Where: Hartwig Alley
Admission free