book title: Wszyscy kochamy rzeczywistość
size: A6
page count: 109
number of copies: 4
2020
Nowadays some places of religious worship, saints and miraculous paintings have become tourist attractions. Sanctuaries are turning into enormous theme parks offering more entertainment than many amusement parks. Often there is no visible difference between what is real and what is just an imitation. The work „everyone loves reality” was created during pandemic, unusual summer in „the new reality”. For this work I made a curious trip - something in between a weekend gateway to a theme park and a one week long pilgrimage to sanctuaries in Poland. Traveling has been a vital part of human existence since the dawn of time. Contemporary travel and even more so tourism have become increasingly commodified and superficial. Taking the definition of travel as a starting point I was interested in the connection between a tourist and a pilgrim, as well as a theme park and a sanctuary. A journey through polish sanctuaries and theme parks leads one to reflect on contemporary tourism and pilgrimage movements in post modern times as somehow overlapping and operating on similar basis. The issue of reality and hyperreality of theme parks and sanctuaries has been portrayed as an opposition and escape from everyday life.
This tiny colourful prayer book contains written and photographic documentation from my trip.