Psalms
Graduation Project. A collection of Tadeusz Nowak’ s writings – ‘Psalms’, published in 1974 and ‘New Psalms’ from 1978.
'Psalmy Wszystkie' is a collection of writings by Tadeusz Nowak - 'Psalmy', published in 1974, and 'Nowe Psalmy' from 1978. The project consists of a handmade book in a wooden cover made of a board from a barn from my dad’s home village. The book has an open spine, is sewn with thread and covered with oilcloth on which the title of the collection is handwritten. The format of the book is reminiscent of the size of a prayer book, which emphasises the stylistic form chosen by the author - a psalm.
Tadeusz Nowak was the one who distinguished peasant culture in Polish literature. The work of this almost forgotten poet does not exist on the publishing market. The attempt is my personal tribute to restore his works. Nowak explained what he knew about man through nature. Using photos I taken in my father’s home village I have illustrated the world in which and about which the author wrote.
Pictures transformed into old objects, by their physical outlook they relate to the disintegration of the idyll that the author described.
The photographs and other objects that I put in the book, discovered one by one, refer to the world described by Nowak. Moreover, their very presence, allow for different paths of interpretation about the book’s owner.
Psalms’s world is an intimate journey, hence the choice to give each copy as many individual features as possible.
Throughout the book there are folded bookmarks which transform it into a secret diary. They reveal handwritten titles of works, dedications, notes.