Opening of (Be)Longing in Kraków

Karolina Vyšata intro­duces Rafal Lukawiecki. Courtesy © Szymon Madej.

(Be)Longing, my first solo exhib­i­tion, has opened at 7 PM, on Friday, 14 January 2011, at the Stained Glass Museum in Kraków. It has been a very emo­tion­al moment for me, but there was no time for tears: a last minute rush to get everything ready was fol­lowed by an unex­pec­tedly large turnout. Having planned for 40 – 50 guests, I was very nicely sur­prised when some 120 turned up. Thank you!

I was very pleased to see my pat­rons and spon­sors. Consul Jonathan Koehler rep­res­en­ted the Consulate General of the United States of America, togeth­er with staff mem­bers and their spouses. Urszula and Piotr Ostrowscy (Stained Glass Museum) and Nick Goward (Sick Little Fox) helped greet the guests. Karolina Vyšata, exhib­i­tion cur­at­or, gave the open­ing speech and eased me into the evening.

Press & Web Response

Rafal Lukawiecki signs a copy of his (Be)Longing photo book. Courtesy © Szymon Madej.

Stained Glass Museum on the open­ing night. Courtesy © Szymon Madej.

A major Polish daily, Dziennik Polski, has provided a kind review of my exhib­i­tion in this art­icle. I was chuffed to see that National Geographic in Poland has lis­ted it as a recom­men­ded event. Fotomargines, a Polish blog, pub­lished an inter­view with me. There are oth­er men­tions of the exhib­i­tion on art, event, and pho­to­graph­ic web sites. I will blog about any reviews and com­ments as they appear.

All pho­tos shown in this post were taken by my friend, Szymon Madej, who spe­cial­ises in 360° spher­ic­al pan­or­a­mas. He took one on the open­ing night, please click here to see it (Flash required). There are also a few oth­ers on his site, taken while vis­it­ing us in Ireland, which show my large format cam­era and my dark­room in action. Thank you, Zbooy.

I am grate­ful to all who sup­por­ted me in this adven­ture, thank you, very much.

This exhib­i­tion closed on 6 March 2011.