Kasper Kedzierski – “We Tried...
© Kasper Kedzierski – “We Tried...”
Artist’s Statement: "We Tried..."
Photography is my way of understanding a world that often feels incomprehensible. I do not document events to create a record of facts but to move closer to the emotions that accompany them. For me, these emotions are the truest testimony of reality.
The project “We Tried...” was born from a need to understand and remember a moment when thousands of people took to the streets to protest the decision of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal on October 22, 2020. It was a time when anger, helplessness, and hope merged into one shared voice — the voice of those who simply tried.
While photographing these events, I was not searching for sensation or heroism. I tried to look the way I feel — from close up, from the level of a person who is part of what is happening. I did not know where this process would lead me. I only knew that I had to trust my emotions, because they are what guide me in photography.
Over time, I realized that these images are not only about protest. They are also about our collective effort to understand one another, about the longing for agency that may not always bring change but always carries meaning.
“We Tried...” is not a sentence that ends with a period. It is an open dialogue about what we feel when the world we live in no longer feels like our own.