On Monday evening, 20 February, another meeting of the Olivia Cooltura series took place. The guest of OBC was a well-known Gdańsk photojournalist, Maciej Kosycarz. His extremely colourful personality, charisma and incredible talent for storytelling – recorded in the photos of his father, Zbigniew Kosycarz, and his own – made this event a long memory of the numerous guests gathered in Olivia Sky Club.
Maciej Kosycarz is a well-known figure to most people living in Gdańsk. He can easily be described as “The Man: A Gdańsk Cultural Institution”, although he prefers to present himself as: “Son of his own father”; because of his great respect for the person and professional achievements of his father, Zbigniew, whose saving became Maciej’s life’s mission. In his work, he is first and foremost a chronicler of the changes taking place in our reality and customs, recording – with the help of a camera – what is constant and unchangeable and what is ephemeral. She is also involved in the organization of exhibitions and the Pomeranian Press Photography Competition Gdańsk Press Photo. Over the last dozen or so years, he has released twelve albums from the series “Fot. The Scythe”. On a daily basis, he is a photojournalist and the owner of the Kosycarz Press Foto agency. Since last year, he has also been a co-owner of the Gallery of Various Arts (Gdańsk, 101 Ogarna Street).
In the first part of the meeting, in a nearly hour-long conversation with Monika Bogdanowicz from Olivia Business Centre (the author of the Olivia Cooltura series), Maciej Kosycarz talked about how he showed an entrepreneurial spirit from an early age and how he creatively developed many of his own, often surprising, business projects. In a hilarious way, he shared memories of his youth and brought closer the life of a photojournalist, rich in unique experiences. The conversation also included a reflection on the development of the media, new technologies and communication tools that are changing the way we treat photography. The scythe-maker spoke m.in. about the impact of the above on our “photo-behaviors” and habits of recording images every day. The protagonist of the meeting appealed to the guests to immortalize, in any form, their loved ones and their immediate surroundings: places of residence, commute, walking routes, etc. Based on his own experiences, he described meetings from the past, for example with the future Miss World Aneta Kręglicka or the musician and satirist Krzysztof Skiba.
The transience of moments can be preserved forever, thanks to capturing in photos what is important to us and what we want to pass on to our loved ones or future generations.
In the second part of the meeting, Maciej Kosycarz presented an extraordinary collection of photographs from the archive of his father, Zbigniew Kosycarz, as well as his own photographs, which have entered the history of Polish and world reportage. The screen in Olivia Sky Club was filled with a rich palette of social, political and cultural situations… Extraordinary historical moments, such as the visit of Pope John Paul II to Oliwa, the President of the United States George Bush or the match between Lechia Gdańsk and Juventus Turin.
In the finale, the guests saw unique photos from Oliwa before and after the war. It has been a district of Gdańsk for 90 years, and its intensive economic development has been especially in the last decade, although in fact – looking at the pages of the rich history of this place – Oliwa has always been a people-friendly space, open to the world and taking on new challenges. After all, in the 1960s, the tallest blocks of flats in Gdańsk and the largest sports stadium were built here.
The meeting ended, it could not have been otherwise, with talks with the participants. There were also photos taken together and special dedications in albums by Maciej Kosycarz.
We would like to thank all guests for their presence. We would like to express our special thanks to Mrs. Danuta Poczman (President of the My Olive Association), Mr. Tomasz Strug (StaraOliwa.pl) and Ewa Kowalska (IBedeker.pl).
We would also like to thank the Provincial and Municipal Public Library in Gdańsk and the Gdańsk Community for their patronage, as well as the Lobster Restaurant for delicious refreshments.
We will invite you to the next meetings with authors soon.
Monika Bogdanowicz
