Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak

Swiatoslaw (who is based in Poznan in Poland), works as a guide for an adventure travel company and as a photographer for The Wide Angle agency. His photographs have been published throughout the world, including National Geographic magazine, CNN Traveller, Newsweek, FAO and others. His main area of interest is the Sahara and the Sahel belt, nomads, underprivileged groups, ethnic minorities and indigenous people. He is currently chasing Indian gypsies in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

“The photos presented in the exhibition are from Paraguay, Mexico, Poland and Morocco. The notion of protest, especially political and social protest as in the Sixties in the developed world, is in most of these countries treated quite literally. I didn’t have to look for doubtful associations, substitutes, quasi protest etc. because I operate mainly in the so called Third World or developing countries, and in many cases they are making up for the time lost due to historical reasons such as colonization or the Cold War. Many people or ethnic groups need to fight for their basic rights - things that we have achieved a long time ago. This process is visible especially in Latin American countries, where indigenous groups are demanding not only more equal and just spreading of the wealth in some of the most unequal societies in the world, but are also articulating political requests. They are asking to be finally treated as citizens with equal rights and not patronized, as were the youth, women, and many other underprivileged groups in the developed countries in the Sixties.

In the meantime, in Morocco, unemployed citizens learn from their friends and relatives living abroad, mostly in France, how to demand what they want from the State, which is not as repressive as it used to be in the times of former king. Poland, where I live, is going through a different process. It has quite recently joined the capitalist world and already knows all the consequences. As a result the younger population often reacts as their western counterparts have done for decades, sometimes mixing politics and hedonism in denial of virtues of mainstream society and dancing and playing rather than working and praying, as depicted in the image presented.”