SACKCLOTH AND ASHES

This new book includes nearly 120 photographs by the Polish photographer Witold Krassowski, the oldest from the 1980s and many unpublished ones, depicting daily life in a wide range of countries, including Bulgaria, Tanzania, Peru, Russia, Afghanistan, Italy and Mongolia. Its Black and white photographs, all shot on film, show the universal markers of all our lives – births, marriages and death; grafters – lumberjacks, miners, tailors and chimney sweeps; the guts – the homeless, sick and imprisoned; and joy – festivals, discos and capturing snowflakes on the tongue. Learn more about this project Sackcloth and Ashes is the result of a lifetime of work by the Polish photographer Witold Krassowski. Although he photographed historical events and major policies that have helped shape societies across the world, He has always been drawn to photographing ordinary lives – his most The best known are those he took during the transformation of his Poland. homeland after the end of communism. In 1989. Disparate places and subjects Krassowski's work is unified by his choice to focus on life ordinary citizens rather than the elite or political entities. "The projects from which these images come are covered in dust in some reference libraries. They are dead and should remain so, because their interest barely survives the circumstances that gave rise to them. In this book However, I hope to keep alive a little longer what unites them: my personal approach, a feeling of deep unity beyond cultures. It It is important to me that the impact of these political events can be understood from the point of view of ordinary people in their ordinary lives. For Many of my subjects, their stories would have been long forgotten." Witold Krassowski